More Like Fate
by Fantastic Pants
Summary: First rule of Max Payne: people don’t stay dead. Second rule of Max Payne: people don’t stay dead. Third rule of… Well, you get the picture. After all is done, but never said, fate has never had it’s fill with Max Payne or Vladimir Lem. [hiatus]
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Contrary to popular opinion, I don't own Max Payne. Other people do. Really! 

Author's Notes: This is my first fanfic ever. Still, I put some genuine effort into it, so don't run for your lives just yet! Feedback, especially detailed, would be really great. Flames too! And it burns, burns, burns... Ahem.

Anyway, without further ado, I present the first Max Payne slash story in existence! ...I think.

* * *

**Prologue**

It had been over a year since my life was sucked into yet another vortex of crime, betrayal and blood.

It seemed more like an eternity.

As if a black hole had consumed my past, leaving nothing but the faint, smoky trail of a bullet-ridden nightmare.

In psychiatric terms it'd most likely be called repression.

I call it survival.

The jury found me innocent. Again. Don't ask me how. Maybe they just couldn't believe that one man could be responsible for so much killing.

I turned in my badge a day later. I wanted nothing more to do with the Force. Wanted to start a new life. A life that Mona, in her death, had breathed into me.

Unfortunately, there's usually a pretty big gap between what you want, and what you get. I could turn my back on my profession, but not on who I was. A killer. A mass murderer, technically speaking. You can't leave hundreds of corpses in your wake and not have it leave a footprint on your soul. If I still had one. I wasn't sure anymore.

Getting a normal job was out of the question. Whatever normal was, I was about as far from it as one gets. It was easier to imagine myself as a Chippendale than working in some stuffed office, having to play along in order to fit in. Becoming a private eye was a predictable, practically inescapable choice, but it was the only one I could make while retaining some fragment of my old self.

I rented a miniature office in the shady area of town, and the respectably shady clientèle was soon to follow. Hookers, bums and lowlifes came in all shapes and sizes, becoming as close to colleagues as I would get. I couldn't complain. When you've lost so much already, concepts such as dignity and reputation stop playing a significant role in your life.

I steered off the big cases, hoping to avoid major bloodbaths. Fat chance of that working out, since 'major bloodbaths in your future' was the fortune cookie I've been forced to chew on my entire life.  
Still, for the time being, things went smoothly enough. Nothing grittier than your usual murder here and there. Most of my cases were the kind my clients didn't want to be dug too deeply by the proper authorities. Or the kind proper authorities hadn't dug deeply enough into.

Proper authorities. Now that's rich. With corruption running so deep and so high, 'proper' wasn't a word you could implement anywhere but in a third grader's vocabulary. A word he too would toss away as soon as he came face to face with the harsh nature of reality. I'd strayed far from propriety, balancing on the thin thread of my remaining conscience, on the sidelines of the law.

It seemed to work for me.

Life, while not quite what any marginally sane man would call good, was bearable, which was much more than what I had reason to expect.

Insomnia was the most frequent of my guests. Actually, it was the only one, since I had no friends left, no close relatives, no one who gave the slightest bit of a damn. It was probably better this way. No friends meant no one to disappoint. No one to hurt. No one to lose. Less pain all around.

Insomnia visited me again tonight. Stuck on a middle ground between slumber and wakefulness, I was sprawled on the tattered couch in my new apartment – a bleak, colorless condo in a partially abandoned building. At least it was on the first floor this time, so I wouldn't have to shoot through a dozen floors if, or in my case when, it came down to it.

The radio was playing a worn, mellow country tune. Some redneck wailing and whining about how his wife left him, how he had no reason to live, how he drowned all his sorrows in a bottle. The usual crap.

I wanted to tell him to shut up. Try having your wife, child and then lover murdered, every bullet in New York City penetrate some part of your anatomy, everyone you trust stab you in the back one way or another and _then_ try to drown your sorrows. I decided against it. Communicating with inanimate objects wouldn't do much good for my already questionable mental state.

A knock on the door woke me from my futile musing.

No matter what hole I tried to crawl into, how hard I try to stay under the radar, trouble has a knack for tracking me down. A knock on the door in the middle of the night was trouble's way of letting me know that – surprise, surprise- my short streak of luck had run out.

I made my way to the door as slowly as possible, perhaps in an desperate attempt to delay the hell about to break loose. I kept my gun in my jacket. Didn't want to scare a potential neighbor on a sugar hunt.

...Right.

With a sigh to welcome the inevitable, I opened the door.

A turmoil of unformed thoughts erupted in my brain, fighting for my attention like starved bloodhounds.

In the end, just one surfaced as the undeniable victor.

Have no fear, Vlad is here.


	2. Chapter I: Dearest of All My Friends

Author's Notes: I want to thank the awesome Doomsays for being my beta and for drawing me cool slashy pictures. You rock! You rule! You nosebleed!

Okay, that's it. Onwards with the slash!

**Part I: The Wrong Choice**

**Chapter I: Dearest of All My Friends**

Most people, unless they're the kid from the Sixth Sense, aren't used to having people who're supposed to be dead showing up all of the sudden.

Most people aren't me.

That's right. Dearest of all my friends, Machiavellian Backstabber Extraorinaire, the one and only Vladimir Lem was standing at my doorstep.

I would have added the mandatory 'in all his glory', but that would've been inaccurate.

His plan of reigning in Hell obviously hadn't worked out as he'd hoped.

From the look of things, Hell itself had spat him out.

Someone had gone all Picasso on his face, forming a split lip, a black eye and a healthy assortment of decorative cuts and bruises. The usually slick blond hair was disheveled and draped in some sticky substance. Mud or blood, I couldn't tell. He was unnaturally pale, not quite on a zombie level, but getting there, with a thin layer of sweat covering his forehead. He wasn't sporting one of those James Bond styled suits he favored, either. Instead, his attire consisted of ordinary black pants, a faded white shirt, and a flight jacket.

It wasn't a good look for him.

Strange, but my first instinct wasn't to reach for my gun.

Like a driver trying to get a glimpse of a particularly gruesome car accident when he should be watching the road instead, I let curiosity get ahead of my better judgment.

But since when had Vlad and my better judgment gotten along?

I'd known he wasn't an upstanding citizen when I'd befriended him. Mob bosses rarely are. Still, I'd fooled myself into believing he was different somehow.

Honorable.

What a fucking joke.

It would have been nice if somewhere between "Don't talk to strangers." and "Just say no." somebody inserted "Never let the charming gangster convince you that you're friends."

Not that it would've helped, really.

But it would've been nice.

I waited for Vlad to speak.

Unsurprisingly, it didn't take him long to do so.

"Max, my friend!" the exclamation was made with a mild slur. Vlad only slurred when he was substantially drunk. After a brief pause, he flashed his trademarked toothy grin. It played a strange contrast to his battered face. Grotesque, almost. "How good to see you."

I couldn't quite return the sentiment.

Call me old fashioned, but when I kill someone, I expect him to stay dead.

Apparently, with Vlad, even that was too high an expectation.

I wasn't sure what the protocol for speaking to someone who had betrayed you was. That's usually where I found bullets to be a much more efficient method of communication.

Thing was, with Vlad, I already _had _implemented this method.

It hadn't gotten through.

And I hated feeling like a mindless rodent running in an endlessly spinning wheel of death.

Instead, I slid into that old routine we had.

The one where we talked in code, really saying nothing. Verbal Ping Pong.

"Hot date again?"

"Sizzling, actually," he replied, his mouth curving into a familiar smirk.

"Who with?"

"An old friend. I'm sure you'd get along."

"You have friends all over, don't you?"

"What can I say? I have a magnetic personality."

"I think the word you're looking for is megalomaniac."

He made a bemused face before answering, "No, Max. I haven't lost any words. But if I do, I'll be sure to tell you. You're the detective, after all."

We could have played this game all night.

It was time to be blunt.

"What are you doing here, Vlad?"

"I want to make amends."

Sure.

And Santa Clause was getting it on with the Easter Bunny.

"That, and..." there was a momentary flash of hesitation in his speech, "I could use some help."

Who couldn't?

"See, I have this..." he slid his jacket open to reveal a gunshot wound on his left shoulder, a crimson highlight against the dull white of the shirt, "small leakage problem."

He must have been truly desperate to come to me for help.

Desperate, or completely out of his mind.

Or both.

"Go to a hospital. I hear they specialize in that sort of thing."

"Hospitals like to play 20 questions, and..." he sighed, "I'm not in a playful mood."

Well, neither was I.

"You honestly expect me to help you?"

"We're friends, are we not?"

"You have an interesting definition of friendship, Vlad."

Mine didn't include attempted murder, for instance.

I was funny that way.

"Max, what happened between us - it was pure business, nothing personal. You know that. You got in my way, and I had to... remove you. It's not like I put you in my way. In fact, I did everything I could to keep you out of it. You always take things so damn personally."

Pure business, nothing personal.

It was a good motto to hide behind.

There were just two problems with it.

One - I wasn't buying it.

Two - It made no difference whatsoever.

"You killed Mona."

Three simple words.

Three simple words that could once ignite hatred intense enough to consume planets, galaxies.

But as I said them now, I realized they had become hollow, like a bullet shell long after it had pierced your heart.

Now, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't summon up the image of Mona's face in my head. It kept eluding me, like a dream you awaken from too soon. You try to hold on to every piece, every memory of it. You might even succeed for a short while. But in the end, you can't stop it from fading away into your subconscious, leaving nothing but an echo.

Mona had become an echo in my soul. A phantom pain. Just another old scar.

Maybe she had always been nothing but a figment of my fragmented imagination.

Vlad was looking at me, eyes narrowed slightly. Possibly trying to decipher my thoughts.

Even I couldn't do that.

We shared a few seconds of frozen silence.

Finally, he spoke. His tone was calculated. Diplomatic, even. "Mona was a big girl, Max. I support equal opportunities. And you killed Winterson."

"And that makes us what? _Even_ somehow?" Who knew, in Vlad's twisted view of reality, this formula could actually have been applicable. "Did you even feel anything for Winterson?" it was beside the point, but I was suddenly curious, "Or were you just using her?"

"Of course I felt something. We had some good times together. I liked her kid," he smiled faintly, "I didn't love her. At least, not your version of love. Not the kind that lasts forever or conquers all. That's fairy tale love, Max. And Winterson wasn't a fairy princess." At least that was a point we could agree on. "Neither was Mona. She didn't need a knight in shining armor. She would have killed me as easily as I killed her. It was all fair game."

I wondered if life was just one big game for Vlad.

And if so, who made the rules.

Assuming there were any.

"What about Annie? You called her a princess."

I must have hit a sore spot.

He looked like a kicked puppy.

Or would have, if crocodiles had puppies.

"Annie..." there was a slight waver in his voice as he said her name. Maybe guilt wasn't a completely foreign word in Vlad's lexicon after all. "She wasn't supposed to die. That was an accident."

A part of me wanted to believe him.

Another part wanted nothing more than to stick a knife in and twist it.

Hard.

The latter part was winning.

"Sure didn't look like one from where I was standing."

"It wasn't a part of the plan. Kaufman improvised. Badly."

"It's always convenient to have someone else to blame."

"Look, Max – not everything went according to plan," he looked away, letting out a disgruntled sigh, "Things didn't... work out exactly like I wanted them to," frustration was becoming prominent in his words, "It wasn't supposed to be this way."

"Right. You were supposed to be the hero, weren't you?" I recalled his last words.

Well, what would have been his last words, had he actually done the decent thing for once and _died_.

A harsh, bitter laugh preluded Vlad's reply. "I was. I _was_, Max. If not me then who? Gognitti?" he practically spat the name out, coating it with scorn, "Woden, maybe?" his voice shifted, turning into pure, unadulterated hatred, "Do you even have the slightest idea what sort of things he was responsible for?" a dim, ghostly smirk passed over his features. "The sort of things I had to do for him?"

His eyes grew dark, displaying some unreadable emotion. After taking a moment to collect himself, he began speaking again, using a disturbingly apathetic tone. "He acted all high and mighty, of course. The perfect politician. Never letting the dirt touch his hands. He had me for that, after all. His own personal garbage disposal man."

Vlad was growing whiter by the minute. Losing blood. It didn't stop him from continuing his speech, now sounding like he's telling an amusing anecdote. "You know, he called me a 'small time crook' once. Do I strike you as a 'small time crook', Max?"

He wasn't looking for an answer, and I didn't provide one.

Faster than you could say 'emotionally disturbed individual', condensed rage took apathy's place. "I was in the Circle for thirteen years. _Thirteen years_, Max. Yet they treated me like a doormat," he sneered, "You do _not_ walk all over me and get away with it. Woden deserved to die. They all did. And I _deserved _to take his place at the top."

I found it strangely comforting to know that out of the present company, I wasn't the only one who could have benefited from extensive psychotherapy.

Vlad obviously had some unresolved issues of his own.

"And I would have - but then you had to show up," he made a dramatic gesture with his hand, "and ruin everything. Max Payne – human action figure with bullet dodging superpowers – how the fuck do you dodge bullets, Max? Did they teach you that at vengeance camp?"

Cute.

"You just _had_ to play hero. You just _had_ to go on your little revenge trip – it's the only thing that gives your life meaning, isn't it? It wasn't even your war!"

The sound of a door opening across the hall brought a Coup de Grâce on Vlad's rant.

"Mr. Payne! Do you _know_ what time it is? This is an outrage!"

The voice, a winning combination of nails against a chalkboard and a banshee shriek, belonged to Ms. Wilkins, the widow who lived next door.

It just wasn't my day.

Vlad didn't seem to appreciate the interruption, either.

He slowly turned his head in her direction. "Dearest miss, you have my sincerest apologies. I'm simply having a highly important conversation with my friend Max here. It's quite literally_ life and death_," the menacing undertone was hard to miss, "It won't be much longer. May we proceed? With your permission, of course?" he gave her a grin that under other circumstances may have been charming, but now looked like it belonged to a long lost relative of the Addams family.

The sound of a door slamming shut followed.

Then a few moments of blessed silence.

"Well, that was a little anticlimactic," Vlad muttered.

"You don't say."

Vlad leaned on the door frame. He looked burnt out. Defeated. A lion without a mane. When he spoke, it was a somber near whisper. "Why did you have interfere, Max? Why did you have to make it your war?"

"You stabbed me in the back, Vlad, what the hell did you expect? A 'thank you and good luck taking over the world' note?"

"I didn't stab you in the back. I shot you in the head. There's a difference."

It was kindergarten logic.

It just about made sense.

I almost laughed.

"It doesn't matter. You won, I lost," he stated dispassionately. A darkly melancholic smile made a brief appearance before clearing away into a blank expression, "and I've lost _everything_. What more do you want?"

The things that I want, by Max Payne, 2nd edition.

A smoke.

A whiskey.

For the sun to shine.

To wake up in my old bed, with my wife beside me, and find out it the last six years had been nothing but a nightmare. A really long nightmare.

Revenge?

I think somewhere along the line, I must have lost the taste for it.

And I hadn't even noticed.

I had no answer for myself, let alone for Vlad.

Luckily, he had no problem carrying a one sided conversation.

"I don't regret it, Max. I don't believe in regrets. I saw an opportunity and I took it. I'd do it all over again," he was making a visible effort just to keep his eyes open, but sounded remarkably lucid. "But... I do regret sacrificing our friendship," he drew a ragged breath, "I am sorry for that."

If I'd constructed a list of phrases I could never believe him capable of pronouncing, this one would have gone right after 'The Godfather is overrated' and 'Beer is way better than Vodka'.

Then again, with Vlad, 'never say never' was a tailor made catchphrase.

"How the hell am I supposed to believe you?"

He attempted a grin. It looked more like an injured wild animal baring its teeth. "I always tell the truth, Max, even when I lie."

Scarface.

Fitting.

'Go to hell, Vlad, they must really miss you there,' was what I could have said.

'Have fun bleeding to death,' was another option. It had a nice, simple ring to it.

Or I could have gone with the classic 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.' He would've appreciated the reference.

It was probably what I should have said. I wouldn't have suffered any pangs of guilt over it. He deserved it. He deserved worse. Logic, justice, common sense were all rallied up on my shoulder, frantic little angels pleading with me to make the right decision.

But the world had become complicated again. Life, death, choices, right and wrong. Vlad's presence had the annoying tendency to make white bleed into black until there was no possible way to distinguish between the two.

Maybe it was loneliness manifesting itself in some sick, masochistic fashion. Maybe it was some sense of misguided kinship, a 'for old times sake' gesture. Or maybe, when you're sleep deprived, other parts of your brain awaken. Parts you've forgotten all about. And parts you have never even known to exist.

"You watch too many goddamn movies, Vlad," I sighed, knowing I was going to regret this. "Try not to bleed on the furniture."

He gave me an eerie look. I couldn't pinpoint what it held. Surprise? Disbelief? Something else entirely?

"You're a true friend, Max," his words were accompanied by a crooked smile, but lacked the usual ironic edge.

Right.

A true idiot was a more accurate description.

"Can you walk?"

"Of course."

'Of course' turned out to be more of a 'sort of' that became a 'not really' after two and a half steps. I had to reach out and steady him, which ended up with us being in a proximity I found disconcerting.

He didn't seem to mind, though.

It's amazing how many things you can perceive in just a split second.

The tip of his nose brushing against my cheek.

The stark contrast between cool skin and hot breath.

The chill shooting down my spine. An electrical surge with a vindictive streak.

The violently rapid heartbeat that I suddenly shared for no apparent reason.

The taste of Vodka, blood and sweat performing a lethal dance on the edge of my tongue.

A startlingly familiar sensation put into a whole new context.

The only problem with split seconds is their habit of coming to an end.

With the dawn of a new second, my brain returned from its momentary slumber.

The realization that Vlad's lips were pressed against mine hit me like an Acme anvil.

I pulled away abruptly.

He made a sound. An anemic hybrid between a chuckle and a cough.

How drunk_ was_ he? Or was it the blood loss?

Some kind of psychotic game?

"I'm not your hot date, Vlad."

"Don't sell yourself short," his sly smirk resurfaced, "I've had worse."

I decided taking the fifth was the safest course of action for the moment.

Slinging his arm over my shoulder, I helped him get to the bedroom. The fact that he wasn't saying anything wasn't helping. In fact, the silence was even more unnerving than his nonstop chatter. It was charged with restless static energy, contained too many unwanted implications.

I had to break it.

"Take your shirt off and lie down. You can manage _that_. I'll go get the first aid kit."

I made a tactical retreat into the bathroom, not wanting to give him commentary time.

Washing my hands, I inevitably encountered my reflection in the mirror.

It was glaring back at me, wearing the good old 'What the fuck are you doing, Max?' face.

Why, helping the man who'd tried to kill me and killed the woman I'd loved, of course.

What are friends for?

My reflection offered me a mocking, demented grin.

No doubt about it, I was insane.

My only consolation was that there were no Pink Flamingos after me.

Yet.

To make matters worse, there was blood on my lip.

Vlad's blood.

I wiped it away with a swift motion, removing a bothersome bug off the windshield of denial.

I had an entire section in my brain reserved for that sort of thing.

I filed it under repression, where it belonged.

"Still bleeding here, Max!"

Somehow I was getting the feeling that repression was going to get more complicated from now on.

Bidding my reflection farewell, I grabbed the first aid kit and headed back.

Vlad had taken the jacket and shirt off. They formed a heap on the floor, his Desert Eagle crowning it, keeping a watchful eye.

Vlad himself was lying on the bed, his eyes closed and breathing rate erratic.

I pulled a chair next to the bed and mounted it.

I wasn't surprised to find out that while I still held the record for battle wounds, Vlad wasn't all that far behind.

His upper body was a tapestry of scars. Bullet wounds, knife slashes and all in between painted a bloody life story. Most of them were old, but some more recent, like a saber shaped burn on his right side. Probably a reminder of the showdown in Woden's manor.

Some had my signature on them.

A tattoo decorated the center of his chest. It was faded, at least a decade in age. All black, it depicted a nude woman with angel wings and burning flame for hair. She held a rose in one hand, a gun in the other. Two snakes interlaced around her ankle, shaping a sort of twisted S. There was also some writing underneath.

**V**eni **V**idi **V**ici. The Vs were in bold.

I couldn't help but snort.

"What's so funny?"

"Ever heard of Narcissistic personality disorder, Vlad?"

"If the choice's that and chronic depression, Max, I'll take that. I always thought that swapping those painkillers you like so much for Prozak would do you a world of good."

Well, now he definitely wasn't getting any painkillers.

I turned my attention to the gunshot wound. It was clean enough, gone straight through while steering off major arteries. Lady Luck was obviously on Vlad's side. Made sense. He'd always had a way with the ladies.

"Roll over. I'll do the exit wound first."

He complied.

If only he could play dead just as well.

"Do all your dates end with stitches?" I took out the thread and needle from the kit.

"Only the really hot ones," he mumbled.

"This is gonna hurt."

"No pain, no g-" the first plunge of the needle extracted a sharp intake of breath from him.

"You know, that pun is really only funny once," I drove the needle in again.

"Fuck! Max, are you _trying_ to make this as painful as possible?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Hey, I had to get my kicks from somewhere. Sometimes a needle can be as effective as a bullet.

This was almost fun.

A few more needle prods elicited some fascinating bilingual strings of obscenities.

"Really, Vlad, I'd expected a higher pain tolerance level from a ruthless gangster like yourself. This is a little pathetic."

"Fuck you, Max."

"Exit wound's done. Turn over."

He did, though it took him longer this time around. His movements were getting sluggish.

Before continuing, there was a point I wasn't exactly clear about.

"Say... didn't I shoot you a couple of times and watch you fall to your death?"

"Didn't I put a bullet in your brain and watch the building you were in explode?"

He made a pretty good point.

"It takes more than bullets to kill people like you and me, Max."

"People like you and me?" now this was interesting. "What kind of people is that, Vlad?"

"Bigger than life," he made a theatrical pause, "Bigger than death."

I wondered if he'd rehearsed that line in front of a mirror.

"I had a pretty good death scene, though, didn't I?"

"I've seen better."

He tried to give me a deadly glare. It didn't work, mainly due to the fact that he could barely focus his eyes on me.

This was _definitely_ fun.

I started working on the entry wound, but the entertainment value had decreased somewhat. Vlad was beginning to drift off, and seemed to be on the far side of pain.

"Who's the girl?" curiosity reared its head again.

"Mmmh?"

"The tattoo."

The answer arrived with a prolonged delay and a small quirk of his lips, "my guardian angel."

"She's doing one hell of a job."

He jerked his head slightly in what was probably agreement.

Finally, I completed the stitches. I pulled out a bandage and began wrapping it around the wound.

"Max... how _do_ you dodge bullets?" he sounded dazed, like he was talking through sleep. Maybe he was. I had no doubt he was capable of performing sweeping monologues in his sleep.

"Spinach and painkillers," was the first thing that came to mind.

"Huh," the explanation seemed to satisfy him.

I finished up the bandaging and threw a blanket over him.

Exhaustion finally setting in, I sank into the couch and turned the television on. White noise to block out unwanted thoughts. Which covered just about any thought I was likely to have at the moment.

They were showing a Looney Tunes marathon. An old Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner episode. A timeless classic.

I wondered if things would make more sense in the morning.

I knew they wouldn't.

Between the "Beep! Beep!"s and the faint sound of Vlad's breathing, I drifted into sleep.


	3. Chapter II: Mental Pictures

**Chapter II: Mental Pictures**

There are some dreams that feel more real than reality itself. Where every smell, every color and every sensation feel absolutely authentic.

And then there are dreams that make you wonder whether reality and yourself are even on speaking terms.

This dream belonged to the second group.

I was standing on a road in the middle of a desert. Only it wasn't exactly a desert. It looked more like how a six year old would imagine a desert, all broad lines and bright yellow colors. Except that it was night, and raining mercilessly. Even my dreams suffered from a Noir affliction.

There was something disturbingly familiar about this place.

The truth split my skull open, a Viking axe driving a brutally obvious point home.

I put my hands on both sides of my head and pushed. The crack in my skull clicked shut.

I was in a cartoon.

Something sped past me, a blur of blue traveling faster than sound. The object's speed decreased for a moment, and it looked in my direction. I realized what it was then - the notorious Accelleratti Incredibus, also known as the Road Runner. "Beep, Beep!" it declared in an inappropriately cheerful tone, then picked up the pace and disappeared from view.

The blue bird's presence signified that its nemesis, Wile E. Coyote, was nearby. I surveyed the surroundings. My suspicions were confirmed as I spotted the predator standing on an edge of a conveniently placed cliff. He appeared somewhat different than I'd remembered, though. Blonder. And he was wearing a white suit.

A large wooden box stood behind him. The label read 'ACME Arms'. The Coyote turned around, rubbed his hands together with malicious determination, and opened the box. The first item he took out turned out to be, unpredictably, an arm. He shook his head irritably and tossed the object away.

The next item was apparently the one he'd been looking for. A shiny cartoon pistol with a huge barrel and some kind of switch attached to the handle. It had three settings: 'BAIT', 'BANG' and 'BOOM'. The Coyote spent a minute gazing at the pistol lovingly. Then, flipping the switch so it pointed at 'BAIT', he aimed at the sky and fired.

A flare shot up, exploding to form the words 'BIRD SEED' in the sky.

An excited "Beep! Beep!" followed instantly. A cloud of dust appeared in the horizon, drawing nearer rapidly and eventually pulling into a screeching stop a few step from the Coyote. The Road Runner conducted a thorough visual scan of the predator, blinking with enthusiastic curiosity.

The Coyote smiled in a manner only the most gullible would perceive as good-natured. Still smiling, he held up a sign in his pistol-free hand, 'Road Runner, dearest of all my friends, prepare to die.'

The Road Runner's response was a inquisitive tilt of the head.

Switching the setting to 'BANG', the Coyote aimed his pistol at the bird and pulled the trigger.

The gun went off, but instead of the expected bullet, a flag emerged. It read 'Bang! You're dead!'

The Road Runner stuck its tongue out, producing a sound too annoying for any metaphor to do justice to. It then quickly performed a 180 turn and sped away.

The Coyote didn't appear to be very amused. He let out an exaggerated sigh and dropped the flag pistol.

Never lacking a backup plan, he reached into his suit and extracted another gun. It was the real thing this time around, not ACME manufactured. A Desert Eagle, to be precise.

Well, we _were_ in a desert.

The Coyote closed a single eye and took aim, striking a pose taken straight out of a typical gangster flick.

There was a loud bang.

The gun discharged a small cloud of white smoke. The Coyote blew on it nonchalantly, spreading it through the desert air. He calmly put the gun back in his suit and folded his arms.

The Road Runner kept jogging for a few seconds, then stopped. It looked down slowly.

There was a large, perfectly round hole in the center of its chest. The bird's eyes widened and it turned around to look at its executioner.

Giving a mildly apologetic shrug, the Coyote held out another sign. 'Pure business, nothing personal.'

The Road Runner stared at him, then fell face down onto the ground.

There was an air of the macabre about the whole ordeal.

I tried to say something, but no words came out. Instead, a sign appeared in my hand, 'You broke the rules!'.

He lifted a single brow and returned a signed answer - 'Rules are meant to be broken.' He began to walk away.

The old 'if you see a gun in the first act' saying applied to cartoons as well, as it turned out.

He accidentally stepped on the dropped pistol.

'BOOM!', a deafening explosion rocked the desert.

The Coyote opened his eyes and sent me an 'oh shit' look. He sighed and looked down.

He was standing on thin air.

His facial expression amazingly accomplished a moment-long tour through the five stages of grief before he plunged into the abyss.

Gravity was a force to be reckoned with.

The episode ended.

Three red circles closed in around me, and chipper theme music boomed in my ears, conducting a coordinated assault on my brain from all directions.

It was time for a new episode.

I was back in the desert, and something was running down the road again.

It wasn't the Road Runner this time.

It was Captain Baseball Bat Boy.

"You're in the wrong cartoon," I told him when he passed by me, realizing I could speak now.

"Beep! Beep! What! Payne!"

So it wasn't exactly Captain Baseball Bat Boy, either. It was none other than his number one fan, the not-so-wise-guy Vinnie Gognitti. He was still wearing that costume.

"Payne! Payne! You gotta help me! The Russian is gonna get me!"

I hated to break it to him, "I think he already got you."

"What are you talkin' about, Payne!" he shook his head in disbelief, "Help me get this head off!"

I did.

Half of Vinnie's own head came off along with it.

There was no blood involved, no scattered brain bits. None of the things you would expect from a head cut in half, really. It was a cartoon, after all. He just lacked half a head. It was comical, in a way.

"Fuck, Payne! This really sucks!"

"You shouldn't swear. It's rated G in here. You know, for kids."

"Fuck the kids, Payne! I don't have a fuckin' head!"

There really was no good answer to that.

"Caress me, Payne!"

"What?"

I must have heard him wrong.

"Caress me!"

Or not.

"I don't think so."

"C'mon, Payne! Just first base!" he grinned, somewhat hysterically, "get it? 'cause I'm wearing a Captain Baseball-"

"I get it," I cut him off, "But I think I'll pass, thanks."

"It's the head, isn't it? You don't want me because of the stupid fuckin' head," he whined, "I know it's not exactly a turn on, but maybe I can superglue it back-"

"No, it's not the head," I felt the need to reassure him.

"Then _what_? The action figures? I told you, I'm a collector!"

"Look," I went through a list of excuses, "it's not you, it's me."

"Don't give me that shit, Payne! I know what it's all about! It's the Russian, you got a thing-" before I could discover what _thing_ I had, Vinnie sent a frantic look over his shoulder, "-oh, shit! Shit! The Russian is coming, the Russian is coming!"

"Where?" I didn't see anything. It was probably just in his head. Although which part of it, I couldn't tell.

"Everywhere! He's everywhere! Hide me, Payne! You gotta hide me!" he sounded impressively panicked for a guy who really didn't have all that much left to lose.

"You can hide in the TV," that seemed to make sense, him being a TV character and all.

And with that, I ended up back on the couch. Vinnie waved at me anxiously through the television screen. I waved back, slowly. Then the credits began to roll.

The show was over, and the news came on.

"Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Stark, a decorated hero of the Gulf War, was found shot to death in his apartment, along with two other soldiers. No further information can be disclosed at present time."

"Heroes everywhere," I turned my head to find the source of the comment, Vlad, sitting on the couch beside me. "You multiply faster than Playboy Bunnies," he snorted, lip curving upwards. He shifted his gaze from me to the screen, "this is boring, Max. Put something more exciting."

Shrugging, I flipped the channel randomly. I landed on some kind of wildlife show. It featured a leopard devouring a zebra.

"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of quality porn. But this is alright too," he looked at me, pausing to form a thoughtful frown. "Laws of the Jungle, Max. Survival of the fittest. It works, you know," a light smile punctuated the last sentence.

"Too bad we're not in a jungle."

"Yes," he sighed empathetically, turning back to the television, "too bad."

We continued watching the show. Packs of gazelles doing their morning jog; an eagle on a rodent hunt; two horses galloping side by side, for a moment looking almost like one horse with eight legs; a giant snake swimming in the ocean, making a nearly successful attempt to swallow a whole ship. Was this National Geographic or Harry Potter?

"I'm a lion, Max. King of the jungle," Vlad said matter-of-factly, and completely out of the blue.

Even though this was a dream, I found the statement ridiculous.

"A lazy, self-centered bastard who lets his women do all the work?" I smirked, "I can see that."

He gave me a look that bordered between annoyance, amusement and hurt, "I'm not _lazy._" His expression went to a more philosophical realm, "do you know what you are?"

"No. But I bet _you_ do."

"You're a lone wolf who believes he's a dog," there was an undercut of sadness in his voice. Quieter, but with more intensity, he added, "you don't have to be."

Great, now I was being psychoanalyzed in my dreams. By a man who thought he was a lion, king of the jungle. Backwards logic clashed with irony, apparently with the sole purpose of giving me a formidable headache.

I didn't bother replying, and instead proceeded to watch events unfold on the television screen, which now featured an overzealous televangelist telling me to change my ways, to save my soul. "Redemption is but a step away!" he claimed.

It was _always_ a step away.

The quiet dragged on a little too long, and when I looked back, the couch was empty. It wasn't even the same couch. It was the one I'd bought on sale a few months after my wife and I had gotten our new place. Before our baby girl was born.

Before they were both murdered.

"What are you watching?" inquired a voice from behind me.

It was my wife's voice. My dead wife's.

I turned around and saw her standing there.

God, I'd forgotten how beautiful she was.

"Nothing important," I told her. Nothing _was_ important, with her around.

"Then come to bed," she slowly formed a smile. The kind that was both sleepy and seductive. I loved that smile.

"Sure," I smiled back, "be there in a moment."

In dreams, transitions are meaningless.

A moment passed.

I was making love to my wife.

It was slow and natural. We knew each other inside out, held no secrets, never needed to. Everything was so fluid, so easy. So _right_.

She let out a small giggle from time to time. She sometimes did that during sex. It never bothered me. I liked it.

We rolled on the bed, lost in our own private world.

"I love you," she whispered in my ear.

I closed my eyes and kissed her, knowing this was the last time. "I love you too."

When I opened my eyes she was different. Then I realized it wasn't my wife anymore. It was Mona.

She was dead too.

She was straddling me forcefully, one hand on my chest, the other holding a gun. Her head was tilted backward, mouth open in a silent gasp.

I kept my hands were on her waist, struggling to hold on.

We were surrounded by mirrors. They created a sense of vertigo around us, distorting an already distorted reality.

Her moans echoed through my head, through my body, through my soul.

"Max..."

I moved to her rhythm, but she was running away from me, and I couldn't keep up.

"You're a real angel, Max," she pointed the gun at me, "this is goodbye."

I felt Mona fading away through my fingers, and then she was gone.

Vlad's Guardian Angel took her place. I didn't know who she was. I could barely even make out the features of her face. Yet somehow I knew she wasn't among the living, either.

The logistics of having sex with a woman with flaming hair and wings turned out to be a little awkward. Especially considering the fact that we were apparently hanging in mid-air, with no ground in sight. At least I didn't suffer from fear of heights.

"I came, I saw, I conquered," she breathed the words out, concluding with an enigmatic smile.

Then she let go.

I fell.

It was more of a drift than a fall, really. It was liberating.

I wasn't sure how, but I ended up on top of Vlad.

He wasn't dead.

He was naked, though.

We were in Woden's manor. It was in ruins. Nothing had changed from the last time we'd been there. Pieces of debris were scattered around, the smell of smoke hang in the air, and there were even a few renegade flames that went unextinguished. There was one difference – there were no bodies. The place was completely empty. Vlad and I were the only ones left in this ghost house.

"I told you we could kiss and make up, Max," he pulled me in for a long, breathless kiss to prove his point.

"I guess I didn't think you were being that..." I looked for the appropriate word, which wasn't easy under the circumstances, "Literal."

"You just weren't paying attention. You never pay attention."

I certainly was paying it now. Our lips collided again, more hungrily this time. Breaking the kiss, Vlad moved on to the side of my neck, using an interesting combination of teeth and tongue against my skin.

He suddenly stopped.

"Max, why are you on top?" he sounded surprised, like he'd just made this startling discovery, "I _deserve _to be on top."

"Vlad, is it anatomically impossible for you to shut up?"

"There aren't many things that are anatomically impossible to me," he smirked mischievously, leaving me with little choice but to do the same. "In here, at least," he added, motioning his head in some general direction, "but why would I shut up?"

"Because it's _my_ dream," there was something childish about this argument, but hey, _he started it_.

"It _is_ a dream... But it's not a fairy tale."

"I can see that."

He wrapped his leg around mine, and we resumed kissing. He tried to roll me over, but I pushed him back down. He awarded me with an irritated scowl.

"Come on, let me be on top."

"No," I liked him just where he was.

"You can be so damn uncompromising about these things, Max."

"Do you actually talk this much during sex?"

"Sex, Max?" he arched a brow, "this is what we grown-ups call foreplay. And I'm not really even _me_. I'm just a projection of your subconscious. So you won't really know until you've tried."

My subconscious _never_ talked this much.

"It's not going to be easy with you, is it?"

"Max, dearest of all my friends," Vlad flashed a grin worthy of a Cheshire Cat. It slowly disappeared. "Easy is no fun."

There was an explosion in the distance. It didn't seem all that important, really. But I gave him a questioning gaze nonetheless.

"Fireworks," he smiled conspiratorially, running his fingers through my hair, "every good sex scene should have fireworks."

Thunder struck, and rain began to fall. I _thought_ there was a ceiling above.

I was wrong.

The rain poured down on us with a vengeance.

I gave an involuntary shudder.

Vlad noticed this. "It's only rain," he whispered reassuringly into my ear, then began to nibble on it.

It didn't feel like just rain. It was a thousand tiny knives shoving straight through my skin and into my soul. It was an unshakable chill. The feeling of inevitability sneaking up on me.

I had made a choice, though I had idea when, where, or what it was. The path was set.

I pressed closer to Vlad, sharing body heat. He had plenty of that. More than plenty. It was almost as if he was burning from the inside.

There was something lurking in the back of my mind. Something I needed to ask him.

"Is it the end of the world yet?"

He gave me that unreadable look of his, not responding right away. I could see a reflection of the flames dancing in his eyes. "I'm not sure, Max. Maybe."

I nodded.

"Where do you keep your clean shirts?"

"What?"

"Where do you keep your clean shirts?" he repeated, slower this time.

"You're not making sense."

"That makes the two of us then, doesn't it?"

Reality dragged me back by the collar, coughing and wheezing, and not quite ready to let go.


	4. Chapter III: The Morning After

**Author's Notes:** I wanna thank you folks for sticking with me on this, and sorry it took me longer to update this time (chapter 4 shouldn't take as long). It's all those plot bunnies' fault!

I've also written a Vlad Prologue to this fic - "Irony of Fate", and a short unrelated Hurt/Comfort piece - "Pain", in case anyone's interested. Oh, and there's an awesome new Max Payne Slash Community (you can get linked up through my homepage). Check it out!

By the by, does anyone know where I can find some of the miraculous thing often referred to as 'sleep'?

**Chapter III: The Morning After**

"Do you even have clean shirts, or do you wear the same one all the time?"

Vlad's words greeted me into wakefulness, along with a dull muscle ache spread like a spider web throughout my body. I wasn't sure which of these was worse.

Vlad was still talking, obviously, "I know it's your favorite look, but I prefer my shirts free of blood stains and bullet holes."

I turned my head in the direction of his voice. My neck was firmly opposed to the idea, and forced me to pause in mid-turn and suppress a groan. A grim greyness, the only constant in my world, peered at me apathetically from the window, supported by the dim, steady drumming of rain against the thick glass. I finally forced my neck to do my bidding and looked at Vlad.

He was standing by the bedroom door, casually leaning against the wall. He looked better. Still pale, but no longer likely to be pegged as a B-movie extra. The gashes on his face were healing nicely, and he'd gotten himself cleaned up, also changing the bandage on his shoulder. The Desert Eagle was sticking out of his belt now, somewhat awkwardly due to the gun's considerable size. A lit cigarette dangled from his mouth with the loose nonchalance of a bored acrobat, integrating smoke into the apartment's already limited atmosphere.

He was still lacking in the shirt department, though.

Images from my recent dream flooded my not quite conscious mind, coloring the waking world in hazy paint. Looking at Vlad now, I couldn't help beginning to notice different things about him. Instead of the scars, I was seeing the lean muscle and the sharp, well defined lines that shaped him. These weren't the sort of things I was supposed to pay attention to, or particularly care about. But my mind had other ideas, like picking me up by the collar and tossing me into the lion's den.

Where the hell was repression when you needed it?

Noticing either my overly lingering stare or my lack of responsiveness, Vlad gave me a quizzical look. He kept the cigarette balanced in the corner of his mouth, nearly Bogart-like in efficiency, as he spoke, "What's the matter, Max? Bad dream?" a hint of a smile played on his features, providing a teasing context for his question.

Bad?

That was one word for it. 'Disturbing', however, covered it far more thoroughly. And not the 'catching your parents in bed' brand of disturbing, either. Not even the 'watching a David Lynch marathon on LSD' kind. This went far beyond that.

There was only one thing I could think of that was more disturbing.

Reality.

Vlad was still waiting for a reply. "You killed the Road Runner," I informed him.

"Road Runner?" he furrowed his brow contemplatively, pausing to remove the cigarette from his mouth and exhale a dramatic puff of smoke, "'Beep Beep'?"

"That's the one."

He seemed to consider this. "I don't think so. I never liked that cartoon much - it's depressing, and the Russian version is much better. Besides," he stuck the cigarette back in his mouth, "I have an alibi."

He always did.

"What's that?"

"I was too busy doing target practice on that Tweety bird," he illustrated by pointing two fingers then raising them in a lazy pantomime of firing a gun, "Now that's one annoying bitch."

"Tweety's a guy," I felt compelled to point out.

"Really?" he shrugged, using his good shoulder only, "If you say so," tilting his head sideways and raising one corner of his mouth, he concluded, "I stand by my statement."

There was a swarm of unanswered questions buzzing in the air around us, and the silence following Vlad's speech made it all the more deafening. We were both clearly well aware of this, but for now, it was easier to play at normality. Well, our own special breed of normality, at any rate.

"Shirt, Max?"

That was a good idea.

"Under the bed."

Wasn't that where all normal people kept their clothes?

"Obviously," sliding a wry smirk on, Vlad separated himself from the wall. Locating an empty pizza box, one of many I had scattered around the place, he crushed his prop cigarette against it. "Why didn't I think of looking there?" he muttered reflectively, letting his gaze hover over me for several moments as he headed for the bedroom.

I used the little free time to stretch out, quickly bringing my body back from its lethargic state. My mind wasn't quite as good a sport, though. It was still stuck on replay, forcefully pulling me to places I had absolutely no desire to go, then or ever. The relentless badgering weighted down on me, stifling any rational thought I attempted to form.

Vlad finally emerged from the bedroom, carrying my old Hawaiian shirt, to which I had been holding on with the clingy sentimentality of an overzealous Jewish matriarch. "That's all I could find," he held it out, looking at it in the manner one would look at bloodied corpse. Had this _one_ not been a cold hearted killer, that is. "Your revenge shirt."

"That's all there is. The rest are in dry cleaning," I told him. They weren't, but he didn't need to know that. I was still feeling vindictive.

"Of course they are," he muttered under his breath, sending a highly skeptical look in my direction.

Where was the trust?

Effectively masking his discontent with an aura of flippancy, Vlad slid the shirt on, doing this slowly, which, if I knew him at all, was very deliberate, "You know, Max, I've always wondered-" he began buttoning it up, chin tilted down but eyes set firmly on me, "was making this..." producing a small snort, "_shirt_ the last thing your enemies saw," he paused, closing the top button then spreading his arms and flashing a 'Ta da!' expression. Strangely, and rather annoyingly, it looked good on him. Completely out of place, but good. "Was that a part of your revenge?" he went on, knitting his brow into a mock frown before breaking into a broad grin, "that seems almost _too_ cruel."

"I like that shirt," I shrugged, suppressing the sudden and unnerving urge to mirror his grin, "and it was more of a tactical decision. Blinding your opponents never hurts."

The sound of screeching tires invaded the apartment, a loud, sharp reminder that there was still a world outside. A grimace made a short-lived but telling stop on Vlad's face.

"Hangover?" he was doing an impressive job hiding it, but I wasn't a detective for nothing.

His only response was an irritated look, which was all the answer I needed.

"I thought you _never_ got hangovers," it had always been a particular point of pride for him, complimenting his ability to drink 300 pound goons under the table. More often than not, alcohol had no visible effect on him whatsoever.

"I _don't_," his irritation persisted, to my dark amusement, though it was filtered through a thick layer of sarcasm, "as a rule. I do tend to make exceptions for cases there's more alcohol than blood in my body." Sparing me the need to retort, he quickly juggled on to a different subject, "Do you have anything to eat?"

I doubted it. "Check the fridge," I dragged myself up from the couch and made my way to the bathroom, hoping to escape Vlad's presence temporarily.

That feeble hope was extinguished before it even had a chance to ignite. Vlad's presence had already extended itself throughout the place, leaving its calling cards all over. The bathroom was a poor refuge. The air was still stiflingly humid inside. Vlad clearly liked his showers blazingly hot. Fumes gathered on the mirror, thoroughly camouflaging the clear surface, so at the very least I'd been spared another encounter with the mentally unstable stranger who had made it his home.

I opened the tap and let the water run for a while, waiting for it to turn from one extreme to another. Splashing the now freezing liquid over my face, I prayed for an illumination. Something to shed some light on the situation. But there was no one up there to answer my prayers, or even smile and nod, pretending to listen. I was stuck, as usual, with the shadowy dimness of my own mind.

I decided to skip my morning shower - who knew what Vlad had left in there, and stuck to brushing my teeth instead. Concluding this mechanical action, I exited the suffocating room.

Vlad, as I expected, wasn't successful in finding anything to his satisfaction in the humble interior of my refrigerator, which he was currently staring at with a disgruntled expression. He glanced at me as I shut the bathroom door behind me and closed in, "I don't understand you, Max. You can have any kind of food you want. _Any kind_. And you choose these canned-" he paused, glancing back into the fridge, displaying a mix of wonder and barely contained revulsion, "-I don't even want to know what they are." Truth be told, I wasn't a hundred percent sure, either. "You really need to overcome this masochistic streak of yours," injecting flimsy hope, he asked, "Any coffee, at least?"

"All out," that much was true. I could have used some myself, desperately.

"Alcohol?"

"On the wagon," now _that_ was a lie, albeit a wishful one.

Shaking his head dejectedly, he noted, "Amazing." Eventually settling for a battered bottle of Coke that was nearly as old as the refrigerator itself, he hauled it over to the table and scanned the area for glasses. Finding them at an unlikely location, he grabbed two, and, twirling them between his fingers, placed them by the bottle, then proceeded to pour the liquid menace. He did this with the practiced expertise of a veteran bartender. Rather belatedly, he remembered to ask, "You want some?"

Coca Cola was the embodiment of the American Dream. A black-souled, sticky substance sugarcoated with false promises and lies. An empty label devoid of anything resembling a meaning. Which of course never stopped anyone from consuming it mindlessly, myself included.

Vlad's looked at me strangely. "I have to admit, Max, I've never thought about it _quite_ like that," he arched a brow. Had I said that out loud? My mind was in a miserable condition indeed. "Sometimes a soft drink," he held out a glass to me, smiling vaguely, "is just a soft drink."

Could be. But Vlad was never just Vlad. He always dragged complications along for the ride.

With a cerebral sigh, I accepted the glass and sipped the drink warily. The taste was predictably awful- bubble deprived, sugary goo, but there was a refreshing quality about that awfulness.

It couldn't get any worse.

This optimistic thought served as a focus point for my mind. The buzz was now becoming impossible to ignore, or dance around. It was time to begin addressing all those unanswered questions. I placed my glass on the table, locked my gaze on Vlad and flipped that little switch inside my head, turning my inner detective on.

He picked up on it immediately, automatically adopting the posture he'd always used during police interrogations. Laid back to a callous degree, but with a mental wiriness ready to spring at you at any moment.

Some things never changed.

"Where have you been?"

He took a casual sip off his drink, scowling at the taste. "When?" the levity of his tone was grating. Was he trying to play dumb? It didn't suit him.

"You know, since you _died_."

He exhaled slowly, his expression entering a more serious zone. He took the rest of the drink down in the same manner one would have drowned a shot. It might have been a Pavlovian reaction, or maybe he was just attempting to circumvent the taste. His glass joined mine on the table. He took his time before replying, with obvious reluctance, "The Motherland."

There was only one subject that I knew could cause Vlad to speak in monosyllables. 'The Motherland' was it. A verbal Kryptonite of sorts. He'd always been keen on avoiding the topic like a highly contagious STD. I'd brought it up in one of our conversations, long before the whole mutual-killing ball had begun to roll, and he had told me that he had nothing but bad memories there, closing the topic indefinitely.

"Really? What were you doing?" while I wasn't normally in the habit of poking at old wounds, I had absolutely no qualms about it now. Hurting his feelings was exactly a consideration. "Catching up with more old friends?"

He clenched his jaw. It was a barely noticeable gesture, and lasted no longer than a second, but it failed to pass by me. "Being invisible," he forced the flippancy back into his voice, absent-mindedly tapping his fingers against the table surface.

"That's not your strong point."

"I never needed it to be," his smirk contained a tint of bitterness.

"Times change," I called to his attention.

Making generalized, abstract statements was never a smart thing to do around Vlad. It prompted him to slide into his philosophical realm, which often guaranteed either an instant headache or an excruciatingly long debate, with a headache for dessert. This time he was mercifully concise about it, at least, "People do, too."

"So, you've _changed_?" I maxed out the sarcasm meter, and still doubted it conveyed even half the amount of skepticism that I felt.

"I didn't say that," he grinned in a true ear-to-ear fashion, "You should pay more attention, Max."

No, clearly he hadn't changed one bit. For some reason, it was better this way. More real. The devil you know, if you were in the mood for clichés. Vlad always was. I allowed a smirk brief entry rights to my face.

I was about to formulate the next question when my deja vu flavored spidey-sense went off, igniting a silent alarm in my head. Whatever it was that ticked it off - a subtle shift in the air current, a faraway whistle or just the acute feeling of sudden wrongness, I acted on it without a blink of hesitation.

The bullet traveled an inch away from from my ear as I lunged myself at Vlad, tackling him towards the floor. Pieces of shattered glass followed, raining down savagely. Most of them finished their short lifespan harmlessly on the floor, but a few relentless ones decided that burying themselves inside my flesh was a more amusing outcome.

I was not amused.

Once Vlad and I hit the floor, several thoughts went through my head with startling speed, racing each other to the finish line. The first was that the next time I looked for an apartment, I'd be sure to choose one that had no windows. Anywhere.

The second was that maybe I should have just shouted at him to get down, instead of performing a cinematic tackle. Or let his own reflexes do the dirty work. Or maybe just watch the bullet pierce his skull. Well, not that. Not really. Now that for some reason he wasn't dead, I knew I intended on keeping him that way.

The last thought was that getting half a dozen glass shard stuck in your back could be a real mood killer.

I had no illusions that helping Vlad would come back to bite me in the ass, but I hadn't considered how little time it would take, and how close it would come to manifesting itself literally.

God, I hated narrative devices.


	5. Chapter IV: A Shot in the Dark

**Chapter IV: A Shot in the Dark**

"What -" the words exited my mouth with a grit, chafing irritably against my teeth. They reached Vlad engulfed in a red flare of rapidly igniting fury, which curiously corresponded with the sharp, stinging pain in my back. "- _was that_?"

The less-than-pleasant situation we were immersed in made me wish I hadn't mentally complained about the taste of stale Coke only minutes earlier. Murphy's Laws were rarely forgiving, and always quick to catch up.

Vlad was spread out on the floor with the dignity of a lounging jungle cat, while I was in a position not entirely dissimilar, though lacking in the feline department, on top of him. His gangster reflexes served him well, and his Eagle had already made its way to his grip, vigilantly overlooking the world from its serenely horizontal position.

We were out of the sniper's reach, but that was the only positive point I could find in the entire ordeal. The worst part, though there were many candidates for that desirable role, was that this scene played in caricatural correspondence with the one from my dream. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if my body hadn't decided to play along with this sick fantasy, beginning to respond in a completely independent, inappropriate manner.

I made a silent vow to never fall asleep again.

"Wait, don't tell me - I think I know this one," Vlad didn't seem all that affected by the solemn state of affairs, perhaps due to the severe glass deficiency he was suffering from. He faked a pensive face, finally exclaiming - "a gunshot."

My lack of amusement persisted.

"Where did it _come _from?" I expanded upon the question, maxing out on my remaining patience supply. It was growing thin.

"Agun, maybe?" he employed his muse-out-loud voice. "Could be the bullet fairy again, though. You never know."

"_Vlad_," I attached a lethal edge to the near-hiss. With the glass shards threatening to transform me into piece of postmodern art – I'd never been a fan of that particular art school - I was even less inclined to play his games than usual. "_What_ is going on?"

"Max, I have no idea." His expression contained all the innocence of a catholic boarding school for girls, preferably one run by Sister Maria from the Sound of Music, and then some. The light smirk that followed marred that effect somewhat. "Scout's Honor."

'Scout's Honor', I'd learned over the years, was Vlad Code for 'Sorry, but I can't be bothered to make up a convincing lie at the moment, please leave a message after the beep'.

The only message I was inclined to leave was of the bottled kind. Optimally one directed at his head.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the time to carry out this wishful line of thought. Neither was it the time to conduct a formal interrogation.

I gave a disgusted grunt, which was immediately reflected at me in the form of a concern-proof grin. Carefully crawling off Vlad, I rose to a crouching position, taking out my gun in the process. The cool metal being felt instantly at home in my hand, becoming nearly a living, organic extension of it.

It was bullet time.

Vlad followed my lead, rolling from his laid-back state into a ready-for-action crouch with the kind of effortless efficiency designed purely for showing off; probably cherishing the fact that had I attempted a similar maneuver, I'd have ended up as an unattractively bloody heap adorning the floor.

The kitchen counter transformed into a preliminary line of defense as my inner cop launched into briefing mode. "We exit through the front door, that's our only option. Shoot through whoever is thoughtful enough to be waiting for us-"

"Max," he cut me off, pausing for a perfectly timed frown. "We should wait."

"_Wait_?" I echoed, irritation mixing with skepticism for on optimal effect. "I don't have a desk to hide under, Vlad."

"As long as you've got your spinach and painkillers, we're covered."

"We can't afford to play the waiting game, we need to keep initiative –"

"We've already lost initiative. We still have the advantage of being on home territory, though."

"That'll be a great comfort when the army of henchmen starts busting in."

"You worry too much, Max. I doubt there's an army out there. Probably only a few men. Maybe just one."

It wasn't wise to question my paranoia, but being the source of a sizeable portion of it, Vlad had little to lose in that area.

"How did you reach that conclusion?"

"Call it a hunch," he offered helpfully, narrowly avoiding a salesman grin.

"A _hunch_." The day I started believing that Vlad operated on _hunches_ would be the day I opened my own nail salon. 'Payne & Polish' did have a catchy ring to it, I had to admit.

"An educated guess, then," he corrected, eradicating manicure related daydreams.

That sounded more like it.

Whether I liked it or not, Vlad clearly had a better idea of what we were facing, even though he wasn't keen on sharing it with the rest of the class.

"You better not be getting us killed."

"Relax, Max," he smiled, hand reaching to pat my shoulder but stopping half-way as he caught the not-quite-warm gaze I directed onto him. "I'm not planning on dying wearing a Hawaiian shirt."

A truly reassuring statement if there ever was one. Somebody ought to have put it on a banner.

I sighed, letting frustration battle reluctant agreement. It was a short and unspectacular fight, not one to go down in history books. Frustration turned out to be a sore loser, spreading throughout my body and highlighting the original additions to it, cruelly accenting the sting they inspired.

Spinach was in short supply and a bit too healthy for my taste anyway, but painkillers weren't such a bad idea. I pulled a bottle out of my jacket, sending a few pills on a direct route to my mouth. The bitter taste formed instantaneously, mirroring reality with an unflinching accuracy. It took several moments for the sharp pain to start easing in, eventually becoming a faraway ache belonging to someone else.

Vlad was giving me a narrow sideways look.

"Max, the first step is admitting that you have a problem."

"Vlad, _you _are going to have a problem soon, if you don't shut up. A sharp, painful kind of problem."

"You know - you're a little edgy today," his expression bordered on worry that might've appeared authentic to those individuals who had the privilege of not knowing him. "No pun intended."

It's remarkable how many creative torture methods your mind is capable of conjuring up within the course of a minute.

We continued to wait, and I spent the vacant time mentally inflicting each new method I came up with on an unsuspecting Vlad, until the silence was finally breached by muffled footsteps behind the front door.

Then a knock.

Vlad and I exchanged glances.

A moment later, he raised his brow and spoke.

"Knock knock."

Unbelievable.

"Who's there?"

"A polite henchman."

"A polite henchman who?"

"A polite henchman who's about to get his head blown off."

"Vlad, that's not really how these jokes work."

"I never could understand them, really. Must be an American thing," he peeked out from the counter's corner, leveling his gun at the door. "Ours are funnier."

"_Mr. Payne_!"

I've never been that big a believer in the supernatural, but it was hard to avoid the thought that someone up there really had it in for me.

"Mr. Payne! I _demand_ to know what's going on!"

Vlad gave me a suggestive, almost hopeful glance, passing it fluidly onto the all-problem-solving Desert Eagle.

I shook my head. Somewhat half-heartedly.

He shrugged.

"Mr. Payne!" the pounding on the door was matched only by the unyielding intensity of the harpy's voice. The sniper must have interrupted one of her favorite soaps, to judge by the militant tone. "Open the door this very minute or –"

Before the huffing and puffing had a chance to reach its full potential, a single gunshot erupted behind the door.

The silence that came afterwards brought a chill to my spine.

It seemed to have reached Vlad as well, his mouth curling into a thin, crooked line, gaze redirecting to the floor.

The waiting strategy had gone out of the window, catching a few remaining glass shards on its way.

I signaled for Vlad to stay put, receiving nothing but a simple nod for a change, and began to advance slowly in the door's direction. No bullets intercepted my route, perhaps due to advanced henchmen etiquette. The only obstacle was the silence clouding the air, imitating tear gas with its suffocating weight.

Reaching the door, I waited the customary second, then leaned over and opened it in an abrupt motion.

The sight that greeted me wasn't the body of an overly nosy neighbor who'd thrown one tantrum too many.

The hallway was empty.

Well, it was until the bullets started flying.

Nice of them to wait until the door was open, at least.

I managed to dodge out of the way in time, the metal stream passing a few inches away from my face, burning its course through the shady atmosphere until it found a suitable resting spot in a conveniently placed wall.

Crouching at the side of the door, I silently awaited further development.

I didn't have to wait long. A hazy figure raced through the doorway, its speed not quite standard henchman material.

The henchman of the hour was clad in baggy clothes and a ski mask, wielding what appeared to be a Glock. True to Vlad's estimation, he was alone. He also happened to be sporting a pair of rollerblades.

You see something new every day.

The pace he was traveling in caused the bullets departing from my Beretta to suffer the same fate his had a moment earlier. In a move ripped straight off a Tony Hawk video, the inventive henchman jumped onto the counter, swiftly sliding over it in Vlad's direction.

Vlad was only beginning to rise when the rollerbladed foot crashed into his gun hand, causing the proud Eagle to fly– an impressive feat for a wingless bird – finally conducting a crash-landing in the corner of the room. The collision didn't come with a bone cracking sound, luckily, but it did entail a loud grunt that blended pain with anger.

The henchman performed a fancy spin in the air, his own landing turning out to be considerably more elegant than the Eagle's.

That is, until he encountered a stray pizza box in his path.

Home territory had its advantages after all.

He proceeded to slide several feet after the tumble - towards me, conveniently enough. I closed the gap with a few hasty steps.

Kicking the gun out of his hand, I gripped his shirt, dragging him upwards and against the wall.

Behind me, I heard Vlad collecting his gun, muttering something of a dubiously pleasant nature under his breath.

I tore the ski mask off, revealing the sallow face of a man not older than twenty five. Eyes of a pale aquatic shade provided the kid with a vaguely amphibian appearance, and overly pierced eyebrows only added to the impression, resembling odd metallic scales. The blue dye his hair suffered from was the mandatory touch of overkill.

Freakboy – the most appropriate name I could find for the kid with the fishy affliction – blinked several times before focusing his watery gaze on me.

"You have loud neighbors," he informed me, matter-of-factly.

"Tell me about it."

Before he got the chance to do just that, I skipped right to the main course. "Who sent you?"

He narrowed his eyes as he considered the question, which was apparently more complicated that I'd thought. Finally, his lip curved upwards in what attempted to be a smile, but resembled a twitch. "God."

This made him either an exceptionally well-armed Jehovah's Witness, or the long lost member of the Blues Brothers.

Though it did make a certain sense. God and I had more than a few scores to settle.

"Max, let me have a go at him. I have a knack for that sort of thing," Vlad sounded quite eager with the prospect. Overeager, even.

Good cop, bad cop, then?

Well, 'bad ex-cop, worse gangster' was the more proper term, but it didn't sound quite as good.

I supposed it couldn't hurt. Well, if you ignored Freakboy's perspective, that is. "Knock yourself out."

Stepping back, I let him inherit my improvised interrogation post. He took the position at a stride, carrying a posture of relaxed ease.

"Gunther, dearest of all my friends!" the grin that spread across Vlad's face was sprinkled with precisely the right amount of edgy instability, like a carefully sharpened knife, complete with the overly sparkling surface. An effect he'd doubtlessly spent some time perfecting. "Long time no see."

"Lem," Freakboy, apparently also known as Gunther, acknowledged blankly. Slowly sliding his gaze over the 'revenge shirt', he added, "New look for you."

"A little variety never hurts."

Vlad and Freakboy seemed to have hit it off rather well. Must've been their mutual penchant of speaking in riddles. I would've looked for flaws in my questioning technique, but somehow it was always easier to run an interrogation when you happened to be familiar with the subject.

Vlad would have a bit of explaining to do, when this was done with.

"Let's talk about guns," Vlad suggested with a childish enthusiasm. "You like guns, don't you, Gunther? I've heard you are quite the fan." He sent his free hand to scratch his chin, carrying on with his speech without leaving room for input or feedback, "See, I like guns, too." At that, he raised his shiny metal Eagle at a tilted angle, bringing it closer to Freakboy's face. All that was missing was a display case. "You're familiar with the Desert Eagle, I take it?"

"Yes. Very exotic," Freakboy graced the gun with a visual study containing roughly the same amount of interest that the common high school student has for an anthology of algebra books throughout the ages. "Do you know what the jam rate on that thing is?"

"I've never had any problems with it," Vlad gave the Eagle a curious glance, lifting a single eyebrow. "It's good of you to show concern, though," he placed his gun-free hand on Freakboy's shoulder, giving it an appreciative squeeze. The kid's gaze took a journey from the gun to the trespassing hand, then back again, careful not to reveal any emotion on the way.

"Do you know _why _I like it?" he kept the question in the rhetorical realm as he went on, "It's simple, really. A bit of a cliché." I'm sure this came as quite a shock to all parties present. He took in a breath, creating a pause of the theatrical nature.

Freakboy's expression, while still battling for impassiveness, was losing stability.

Stability and Vlad didn't mix all that well.

"Size does matter," he exclaimed finally. Passing his thumb over the grip of the gun, as if caressing the cheek of a loved one, he continued, "With a gun like this, one bullet is always enough. It's economical that way. Straight to the point."

Maybe it was a case of the opposites attract, then.

"Unless, of course, you happen to be Max Payne, and possess a lead skull. But obviously you're not, because that's Max Payne right there," he tilted his head backwards, in my direction.

I raised my hand helpfully.

Good to know I was needed.

"Do you know what else it's good for?"

Rhetorics were the name of the game, and Freakboy wasn't playing.

Yet another pause stretched by, and I spent it trying to come up with some answers myself.

Dry cleaning?

Window decoration?

Showing off?

"Russian roulette."

A silence arrived from Freakboy's end, followed by a disbelieving smirk.

"You can't play Russian roulette with a semi-automatic. It defies the definition."

"No?" Vlad flashed a look of mock surprise that faded into lighthearted amusement. "I like to defy definitions, Gunther. Introduce some house rules now and then, you know. It livens things up." He leaned forward, casually invading Freakboy's personal space until they were close enough to exchange breaths, then half-whispered, "Though maybe not in this case." Retreating from Freakboy's face, he resumed speaking in a conversational, distracted manner, "I've already played it this way, more than once, so there's no need to worry. Of course, I've always won, but I'm just like that - I get lucky sometimes," he performed a 'what can you do?' styled shrug.

Freakboy was beginning to display some interesting facial contractions.

"Who knows?" a devious smirk clung to Vlad's features before settling into a hard, stony expression. His tone achieved a degree of coldness that could have put icebergs of Titanic sinking reputation to shame, as he brought the tip of the gun to Freakboy's forehead, "Maybe it will jam."

This was almost Broadway material, only without the ridiculous admission prices. And the cats.

Though the latter was debatable.

Freakboy's eyes made a frantic turn in my direction, broadcasting 'Is he serious!' on all wavelengths. I kept my vague amusement hidden under a grim poker face; the one most people knew as my usual expression.

"Ready?"

Faster than a fox with a flaming tail, Freakboy's gaze shot back to Vlad. It stopped cold, transfixed, split by the gun barrel. He opened his mouth, presumably for replying purposes. Nothing of the audible sort came forth, though, leaving him gaping in a suitably fish-like manner.

Vlad's finger tickled the trigger with an air of hyperactive impatience.

Freakboy's mouth and eyes closed.

The moment stretched on, probably becoming an eternity in Freakboy's lexicon.

Vlad let out a warm chuckle.

"Just kidding. You are right, of course. The odds _are_ a little uneven. I wouldn't want to show poor sportsmanship," he graced Freakboy – now with ten percent less skin pigment – with an amiable smile. "How about a slightly different game, then? I ask a question; you answer it - good for you. You fail to answer it…" he shrugged, the epitome of calm. "I use the contents of your head, considering you have any, that is, to decorate that wall behind you." He inclined his head in said wall's direction, providing a visual reference for all those interested. "Don't think it would make much of a difference to the wall texture."

Somehow, in the middle of his little theatrical production, he'd found a timeslot to criticize my apartment design.

While impressive, it was uncalled for.

"How about it, Gunther? Sounds fair?"

Freakboy was more interested in playing the part of an authentic Egyptian mummy than in voicing his opinion regarding the rules of the game.

Vlad took that as a silent agreement.

"God, is it?" Vlad's expression indicated he was facing the philosophical dilemma of the century. "The only _god_ I'm familiar with is the complex." Still with the pensive demeanor, he went on, "It doesn't narrow things down much, though."

Launching his twist on the 20-question genre, he began, "Is it Thorn?"

No comment was received from the interrogation subject, who kept behaving like a good little museum exhibit.

Vlad tapped a finger over his forehead before pointing it at the kid, "The black and white bitch?"

The mummy's eyes lit up, racing towards spontaneous combustion. "Don't you fucking _dare_ -" the outburst, soaked in righteous fury, was severed by its originator, only a little too late. Freakboy's cerebral skills obviously failed to match his ballistic ones.

Vlad raised an eyebrow. "It's only semantics, Gunther. No need to get so upset." The well-meaning wrapping on the smile he put on failed to conceal his obvious amusement. "I'm sure she'll appreciate you standing up for her, though. It's very gentlemanly of you."

The gentleman in question looked more preoccupied with turning a few shades paler, probably trying to find new and exciting ways of mentally kicking himself.

"Care to tell me the lovely young lady has planned?"

"The only thing I care to tell you is to go fuck yourself, Lem," Freakboy had finally purchased the 'nothing to lose' policy, though sadly it didn't come with built-in originality.

"Words wound, Gunther," Vlad brought his free hand to his heart, tone dripping with almost lifelike hurt. "Didn't your mother teach you that?" Before the invisible audience had gotten a chance to be enlightened regarding the educational techniques of Freakboy's parents, Vlad spoke again, bringing some psychological warfare into the mix, "I've got sad news to break to you. Your boss doesn't care the slightest bit about you. She only sent you here because you're expandable."

"You don't know what you're talking about," the kid actually managed a convincing smirk, curving crookedly against his pale face.

The denial barrier was clearly as strong as ever.

Vlad shrugged, looking increasingly bored with the whole ordeal. Which made it the perfect time for a monologue, obviously. "Life throws difficult choices at us, Gunther. It can be cruel like that." Mercifully short this time, at least. "So here's a choice for you. You can be a gentleman, or you can stay alive."

Freakboy's scaly eyebrows drew together, forming a resolute line of the chainmail variety, "I'll take door number one."

The due maintained an unflinching eye contact for a stretched out moment.

It was finally sliced as Vlad's mouth drifted into a faint smile. "Well, I must say I admire your choice. And they say chivalry is dead." The smile grew harsher, a meaningful look sent to the Eagle, "I guess they do have a bit of a point there, though. It's been nice catching up, Gunther."

Taking a step backwards, he kept the gun in level with the kid's forehead, assuming a posture I was personally acquainted with. A little too personally.

Freakboy closed his eyes for the second time.

Despite the blandness of the apartment, I had little desire for Vlad-designed wall decoration, especially of the brain matter sort.

"_Vlad_."

He turned his head in my direction, transmitting a mildly irritated 'what?' signal.

As I prepared an answer for him, I belatedly noticed Freakboy's hand moving.

Too little, too late.

An earth-shuttering noise roared around me, turning my eardrums into sandpaper.

The world turned a brilliant white; a blinding negative of my usual reality.

The white quickly receded to reveal the exact same picture as before, with Vlad and Freakboy in their respective positions. Only the sounds weren't playing in correspondence with the frozen visual input – a gunshot followed, soon echoed by a rather emotional, Russian-accented, "Fuck!".

Afterwards came the suffering noise of glass crushing under the slide of rollerblades, a whooshing sound -

Then silence.

The picture began to rebuild, washing in with a tide of vicious vertigo.

A bullet shaped hole decorated the wall, but from the look of things, the contents of Freakboy's head did not accompany it. The head owner himself was nowhere to be found, though he did leave a calling card in the form of a flashbang, now lying purposelessly on the floor.

I wondered if this stood up to the standard of Vlad's beautiful exits meter.

Probably not. It suffered from a distinct lack of fireworks.

Vlad stood in the same spot, though perhaps 'stood' was an overestimation. He seemed to be straggling to remain connected to the floor, his eyes open to minimal slits.

I couldn't help but empathize, mostly due to the fact I was in a similar condition.

The first thing to penetrate the nauseating silence was Vlad's voice.

"Max, I was bluffing, damn it!"

"It's hard to tell with you."

"I think you're missing the point of _bluffing_," he muttered, firmly attaching the palm of his hand to his forehead, eyes still at their half-closed state. Flashbangs and hangovers didn't play well together, apparently. "We can make up our own sign language if you want. Next time I'll be sure to scratch my nose before I bluff." He kept massaging his forehead, concluding with a quieter but not less impassioned "Fuck."

A few moments passed.

"Assassins on rollerblades," I commented into the empty air.

"Haven't you heard? It's the new thing. All the cool kids are doing it."

I preferred pigs on wings. At least they had the cute factor.

"Because regular assassin work gets so monotonic."

"I blame computer games."

Who didn't?

"…Rollerblades."

"Could've been Hula-Hoops."

The dizziness was beginning to wear off, and I used the reprieve to edge in closer to him, gripping onto my gun like a toddler to his comfort blankie. At the moment, it was the only thing that made the tiniest amount of sense. "How about some explaining, Vlad?"

Hand still pressed against forehead, he studied me for a while, taking a deep breath before replying. "The Inner Circle is gunning for me. Didn't I mention it?"

"I must have missed it." The comfort blankie was rapidly turning into a potential murder weapon. "Would that be the same Inner Circle you slaughtered back in the day?"

"_Slaughtered_ is a big word, Max," the smile he accompanied the statement with was a bit too close to cheerful for my taste. It diminished, leaving a darker expression in its wake. "The Inner Circle is bigger."

"So they're after you now." This failed to surprise me, for some reason. "When were you planning on letting me in on this little tidbit?"

"I was going to get around to it eventually, Max. I was," he made a small pause, transforming his face in the vague direction of discomfort, "waiting for the right time, that's all."

"I guess now's the right time." Interrogation mode kicked back into gear. "So that," I gestured at his shoulder, "was a present from them, then?"

"Well, they forgot to get me one for Christmas, so I suppose they felt they owed me _something_."

"And now they followed you here."

"Nobody followed me." He turned to study the floor, scoffing assurance making way for puzzlement, then for slow realization as his gaze crept in the front door's direction. "They were probably watching _you_."

"Watching me?"

I thought that was a job reserved for older siblings.

Or Vlad himself.

"You're a wild card, Max. You can turn the entire game around. You have a track record for that, after all." There was a hint of accusation hidden in that statement, effectively masquerading within a factual tone. "They want you around so they can utilize you, but keep a watchful eye in case you feel like going on one of your roaring rampages of revenge again. That's probably why you're not serving life right now. Or not six feet under, for that matter."

It made sense, as much as I hated to admit it.

I knew I shouldn't have let my paranoia take that nap.

"Ms. Wilkins," I heard myself mutter, my mouth beating my mind to the punchline.

"Annoying _and_ a spy. A winning combination."

"We shared some special moments. I feel betrayed," I remarked dryly, then spent a moment watching his face go from nonchalant to _more_ nonchalant.

Amazing.

"You just can't trust people these days."

The number of questions still in need of asking could supply a whole season of Jeopardy.

I needed to cut to the chase.

"What are you going to do?"

"I was thinking more in terms of what _we_ are going to do, actually."

"_We_? How did you figure that?"

Vlad constructed a pseudo-thoughtful face. "Guilt by association, Max. I thought you'd be used to it by now." Throwing a glance to the shattered window, he elaborated, "It's only a matter of time until our little Fritz friend tells his boss we're together in this. I doubt the Circle would be very interested in the fine details of our … association."

The dots began to connect, tracing the outline of an all-too-familiar picture.

"You planned it that way, didn't you? You wanted me in _your deck_."

"Come on, Max, it isn't like that. You're my friend." Cue for an extra-wide, extra-charming grin, with sugar on top and chips on the side. It didn't have the desired effect on me, for some strange reason. "The fact that you can single handedly eliminate armies-" he made an ambiguous gesture with his hand, "that's a perk." His speech rhythm slowed somewhat, "I told you I needed help, Max." His eyes moved sideways for a moment, returning to me before he spoke. "I just meant it on a slightly more global scale, that's all."

That was a yes.

I had to use up my last reserves of self control to stop myself from rewarding him with a hard punch to the jaw, or from blackening his other eye. It was tempting to a ridiculous degree, but would have failed to accomplish much. Instead, I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt – my shirt - shoving him against the wall, into the spot previously occupied by the strange interrogation subject. I employed enough force to draw a wince from him, as his shoulder connected with the hard surface.

It might not be as dangerous an activity as insulting guns, but sometimes, when you push a wall too far, it pushes back.

"You know what would make all that_ associative guilt _go away, Vlad?" Still holding onto the shirt, I brought the gun to his temple, locking my gaze onto his with a stark intensity. "Just one pull of a trigger."

There was only one problem with this notion, inspirational as it was.

We both knew I would never act on it.

His expression told me as much, switching from a brief phase of annoyance to project casual amusement.

Well, actually, there were two problems.

The second was the tip of his gun pressed softly against my stomach.

A stalemate.

"That's an interesting idea, Max, really. But you've only just finished patching me up." He moved his shoulders in a light jolt that substituted for a full-blown shrug. "It would be counterproductive, don't you think?" A bare tint of seriousness slipped into his tone, "Besides, it isn't like you."

Funny, how he felt he could judge what was _like_ or _un_like me, when I myself had no idea anymore.

I let my face front my feelings by creating a bitter smirk.

"You know me that well?"

"Well enough. No offence, Max," he sent my gun an offhand glance out of the corner of his eye, the kind one would give a bothersome fly, and let a sardonic smile slide in place, "but you're a little predictable."

Something about Vlad inspired childish reactions. And that's all it was, really - a childish reaction, a 'predict _this_' sort of thing.

That was the cover story my mind was trying to sell me, at any rate.

I kissed him.

There are moments in life that begin as one thing, and end up being something completely different; often a U-turn away from where you'd originally intended to go.

Reasoning, rationalization and repression were all shoved into a dark, moldy corner as pure sensation took over.

It was only lip contact at first, but there was nothing slow, gentle or hesitant about it. It had none of last night's transparent, thread-thin balance. Instead, it was shaped and fueled by raw, unhinged energy, sliding rapidly out of control. It was that same violence that was such an integral part of me- of _us_, making a spontaneous evolution into a new, experimental form without asking for anyone's approval on the matter.

I let my eyes close, visual perception becoming a distraction, a link to the reality surrounding this temporary insanity. An unnecessary reminder that anything but _this_ existed.

Vlad parted his lips, whether by choice, instinct, or something else, I couldn't care less. His breath interlined into mine, inappropriately warm. His tongue edged against my own, igniting brief, ticklish sparks.

It was a teasing gesture.

A dare.

For once, I had no problem taking him up on it.

With nothing but a primal force to back me up, I guided my tongue into his mouth, relishing the halted, stunned reaction on his end. It failed to last, naturally. He regained his ground in a matter of moments, paying me back equally.

Things slowed down a little, clouding into mutual exploration, floating on a tide of lost lucidity.

I didn't have the slightest idea what we were looking for.

Points of weakness? A consensus? Illumination?

Did it even matter?

This wasn't _new_, the part of me still capable of minimal mental processing realized then; wasn't the result of the bullet still nesting inside my head - a souvenir from that fatal night - derailing what little was left of my life, and sanity.

It had always been there between us, somewhere deep down. A fiery substance lurking under a thick surface of oppressive ice. It'd only been waiting for an opportunity. For an excuse.

Now it'd finally found it.

The boiling point was just around the corner, and cracks were beginning to form on the protective layer of common sense.

My tongue continued its journey over his lower lip, letting it linger over the healing cut awhile. It caused him to produce a muffled sound, futilely engraved into the air we shared. If pain was the driving force behind it, it might have eventually evolved into a hiss, but the situation blocked its progress.

Pain. The term didn't connect to anything concrete, but it was familiar. Too familiar. It brought back things I didn't want to remember. Things like time and space.

Right and wrong.

I forced myself into a stop, just barely. Pulling back was like tearing away from an odd fever dream, the slow slide into wakefulness feeling more surreal as anything my subconscious could through at me. It was the kind of dream that left fragments of its inexplicable essence buried deep inside of you, without the possibility of surgical removal. The kind of dream that made you wonder whether lucidity was only an artificial disease humanity inflicted upon itself to cover up the truth.

Slowly opening my eyes, I began regaining my breath – it felt strange now, separated from his. Fractured.

Vlad and I were in the exact same position, our guns in their childish comfort zones, playing pretend.

A reality check had arrived, long overdue.

Vlad was still Vlad.

I was, to some degree, still me.

I didn't need to be a detective to figure out how wrong this was.

My old schizophrenia was stopping by again, a dimmed laughter behind an illusory curtain.

Why did all the wrong things in my life have the annoying tenancy of feeling so goddamn _right_?

It might have been my imagination overacting, but Vlad didn't seem his usual composed self, either. Genuine bewilderment, or at least as close to it as I'd ever seen him display, lingered over his face. It made him look different. More like a real person, instead of the overblown gangster persona he had nailed onto himself.

He pressed his lips together, tongue revisiting the scene of the crime with a rare uncertainty.

At least I'd discovered an effective way of shutting him up.

An urge to resume the kiss, and do _other_ things, arose, but I strangled it before it had a chance to grow into action. As double edged swords went, this one was a little too sharp on my end, cutting a little too deep.

I already had my share of cuts.

Vlad was still regarding me with that close-to-awkward expression, though it seemed to be in the process of becoming something different, more unnerving.

The same look he'd had on the other night, only without the blood loss and alcohol to pin it on.

For a moment, it was as if he was staring right into me.

Then, of course, the smirk made a dashing comeback.

"You get points for unpredictability, Max," he conceded gracefully. "Should I take that as a yes?"

"Yes, _what_?"

"Yes, you'll help me?"

A raging headache was heading my way. There was little I could do but make like a deer stuck in the headlights and brace for impact.

Arguing further was as fruitful as going head-to-head with a sleep-deprived ram. I doubted my head could withstand the extra pressure.

And I had already made my choice.

"Fine."

The grin he gave me must have been a personal record. Which, deductively, also meant a world record. The display of teeth was blinding, making me long for a pair of sunglasses. "I knew I could count on you, Max." As I let my hand slide off the shirt, he casually shoved his gun back into his belt, tucking the shirt over it; its eclectic colors provided impressive camouflage. He proceeded to slap my shoulder in a gesture of excessive kinship. "We should get going. You never know when another German rollerbladed invasion might start."

I sighed. My own gun reluctantly found its way back into my jacket. "Go where?"

He tilted his head sideways, eyebrows rising to the occasions, "I have a place."

"What happened to 'losing everything'?"

"It's all relative, Max," the tone had more Plato than Einstein in it, though that evaporated in a matter of split seconds, too. "Come on, let's go."

He began to advance towards the door, halting when he noticed my delay.

He spread his arms, smiling widely.

"Don't you trust me?"

I had a million comebacks to that question. It was impossible to choose just one, so I settled for a glare.

He retaliated with a grin.

There was no winning this one.

I exhaled, and fell into step after him.

We exited the apartment, making our way to the parking garage.

"Russian roulette, huh?" A smirk formed against my will. "Do you keep a little black book to pull out intimidation monologues from?"

I had no doubt that he had one for last lines, at least.

"No. It's called improv, Max. It's pretty fun, actually. Stress relieving." He sent a pointed look over. "You should try it."

"Have you considered a career in acting?"

"I have, but, you know," he waved his arm with an ever-dramatic flair; "there isn't much place in Hollywood for Russians. We get typecast. KGB and mafia." Heaving a purposeful sigh, he shook his head, "Don't you just hate stereotypes?"

"Can't stand them."

We reached my car, a dash of white painting a contrast against the dimly lit garage space.

I pulled out the car keys, preparing to take the driver's seat.

"You're not in the best shape for driving, Max."

It took me a second to realize what he was talking about.

Somehow, in the midst of all the chaos, I'd managed to forget about the glass-housing condition my back was in.

I reached back, fingers wrapping over a piece of glass.

Vlad's hand closed over my forearm. When I turned my gaze to him, he performed a minimalistic headshake. "Blood loss, as appealing as it sounds, wouldn't be very pragmatic at the moment," he assessed, sounding as if he was relaying a fact of life on a children's television show. "We'll take care of it at my place. You'll just have to keep playing Max Payne the Amazing Bullet Dodging Hedgehog awhile longer."

I had no intention of taking the back seat with Vlad, figuratively or literally, which forced me to compromise on shotgun riding. To avoid the joys of blood loss, I had to keep my body leaned forward, a position as comfortable as your typical medieval torture device.

Vlad, being at his most empathetic, was all but lounging in his seat, apparently mistaking it for a beach chair. With the Hawaiian shirt in the picture, there wasn't too much imagination stretching required. I'd offered him a margarita, but then I'd have to resist the urge of shoving the miniature umbrella down his throat.

The engine emitted a roar, a caged beast heralding the beginning of a journey to a land far away.

Interestingly enough, I did feel a bit like a hedgehog lost in a world made of fog, traveling blindly, stumbling from one dead end to the next.

Seeing only the hazy edges of the pipe dream reality I was trapped in.

I tried to keep my mind of the road, to steer it clear of invasive thoughts.

In my world, once things started on their snowball roll downhill, there was little you could do to stop it.

It was only a matter of time before the avalanche picked up.

Vlad turned the radio on, tuning in to an oldies station. He'd always possessed the magical ability of landing exclusively on Sinatra songs, and it seemed that he hadn't lost the touch.

'_Don't you know, little fool, you never can win?_

_Why not use your mentality - step up, wake up to reality?_

_But each time I do just the thought of you_

_Makes me stop just before I begin_

_'Cause I've got you under my skin_.'

I had a feeling that repression had gone on an extended shore leave.

And it wasn't coming back anytime soon.


	6. Chapter V: The Lion's Den

**Chapter V: The Lion's Den**

The ride was applying a tranquilizer of inertia, coated with steady motion. The effect was soothing, like a leisurely rocking cradle.

A lullaby's trouble-free melody accompanied it, mixing with the soft scent of nostalgia. It was flawless in its simplicity; children, after all, had no need for the nuances, the endless complications that adults insisted on imposing upon themselves.

Perfectly harmonious.

Only… not quite.

Something wasn't right. It was a little detail – so small, so insignificant that you really weren't supposed to pay any attention to it whatsoever.

Yet you couldn't help but do just that.

One note was off. Not an important note. Just a note.

But there was something vaguely unpleasant about it, a shallow tint of an over-the-shoulder, gnawing sensation that couldn't be locked away or ignored.

It kept repeating over and over, scratching across the surface of my consciousness, its mark growing deeper and more irritating with each passing moment.

A slowly spreading rash without an antidote or cure.

Eventually, the sickening note was all I could hear.

It was jarring, a dull knife slicing across bone and brain matter, weaving towards loss of sanity.

Irresistible.

A note of death.

In a way, this deformed lullaby was even more soothing than the original.

Something flickered in the corner of my eye, but I couldn't quite catch it.

A hushed whisper sounded, twisting into a near-kiss at the edge of my ear.

Something horrible lurking just outside of my sight range.

If I could just turn my head an inch sideways, try and -

"Max?"

The hand placed on my shoulder finally began taking corporeal form, my vision detaching from the worm-ridden trail of a past that refused to be cut off. It refocused onto a colorblind, rainy windshield holding the present at bay.

"Are you alright?"

I turned to look at Vlad. A knitted brow and a pursed mouth painted an uncharacteristic mask of concern on his face.

Alright?

Now that was a condition I hadn't suffered from in years.

And the indefinable state between sleep and wakefulness had always been the worst.

The real-life demons provided feeble competition to the murky, formless ones crawling in the back of my mind for what seemed like an eternity, or more.

I moved my head in a mild semblance of a nod.

"Yeah. Just thinking."

The smile he slid on had a well-concealed shred of uneasiness to it.

He wasn't buying it, but neither of us was in the mood for excessive haggling.

The silence was carefully maintained, to the point of grooming, as I kept my gaze on him, gradually hooking a question mark onto it.

"Last stop, Max," he tilted his head towards the car door meaningfully, emphasizing the statement by reaching for the handle.

"Oh."

Terrific. I hadn't even noticed we'd come to a stop. So much for my keen sixth sense.

Even the core five weren't fully operational.

Following Vlad's lead, I stepped out of the car, finding myself under the security blanket of a meager and rather unimpressive rain, though the dark-shaded, foreboding clouds gathered above allowed it some delusion of grandeur.

The neighborhood wasn't particularly familiar, or singular in any shape of form. In fact, it was the polar opposite. It had that air of fairy dust about it, with parallel lines of grey buildings plagued by the cookie cutter syndrome, constructed specifically for the purpose of being easily forgotten. A shroud of invisibility hung over the rooftops and alleyways, handing out free John Doe IDs to those in need.

To keep a _lower_ profile in this vicinity, one had to adopt a snake-like posture.

The car keys were calmly tossed over, and my hand had the courtesy to react in my stead, making a smooth catch and placing them in my jacket pocket.

If only my mind agreed to cooperate with such ease.

Planting obscure tracks into the wet asphalt, we made our way towards a house residing in the corner of the street.

It was nothing special.

Far from new, yet not truly ancient. Stuck in the two-story space between small and large, and miraculously, not even fitting into the 'medium' range. Amorphous and not particularly appealing, but lacking the defining characteristic required to make downright ugly.

The windows were barred shut, an inviting sign by all means. A crooked (to the point of becoming nearly vertical) sign decorated the space above the heavy wooden door, its lifeless neon letters – the ones that weren't smashed or stolen by sneaky neon fetishists (the most dangerous kind, without a doubt) – covered by dust and grime, failing to combine into anything coherent.

The place was the very definition of abandoned.

A ghost house in the dead end of the city, all but faded out of existence.

Strange, but it felt a bit like home already.

We stopped by the front door. Following the Proper Paranoiac Protocol - one I was exceedingly and personally acquainted with - Vlad glanced sideways and over both shoulders, making sure no intrusive signs of life, particularly those of a rollerbladed breed, decided to manifest nearby, before giving the door a thorough knock.

Silence.

Another knock.

"There's nobody home," assured a familiar, heavily accented voice.

Since there was no way of knowing whether the lights were on, it was hard to dispute the statement.

Vlad decided to attempt it anyway.

"There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend. The ones who come through the door, and the ones who blow it open."

After a brief moment of hesitation, the door wisely opened.

The redheaded man behind it was wielding a large grin and a larger AK-47.

I decided against using up any of my few remaining surprise tokens.

Obviously, it was magical resurrection season.

And at the rate things were going, I'd probably need them for later, anyway.

The grin, something akin to relief prominent in it, was directed at Vlad.

The ever-so-friendly Kalashnikov, however, had all of its undivided attention on me.

At least I wasn't running the risk of feeling left out.

"Let me guess," Vlad awarded the redhead with an amused smirk, "your name is nobody?"

The answer was preceded by a shrug and a smile, "You've got to hand it to the Italians. They know their westerns, if little else." He slanted his head sideways, letting the smile fade a little. "You look good, boss." Eying the new and unusual addition to Vlad's wardrobe with distinct suspicion for a decent stretch of time, he tacked on a somewhat hesitant, "Under the circumstances."

The shirt couldn't have been _that_ bad, could it?

Must've been a Russian thing.

Before the subliminal message in his boss's eyes could read 'murder' or something of the sort, the cowboy smoothly redirected his interest in my direction, the liveliness of his expression not budging an inch, "Sheriff."

"Mike," I mirrored the elaborate greeting. Lowering my gaze onto the infamous assault rifle, I appended, "AK."

Sadly, the rifle chose not to respond at the moment.

Its owner made up for it, though. "How's life? Catch any bad guys lately?"

I sent a brief glance over to Vlad, receiving a faintly raised eyebrow in return.

Was it called 'catch' when they were the ones dropping over?

Still, I figured bringing this up in the present company would only result in semantic wars, with uncompromising, blood-soaked campaigns led by terms such as 'legally challenged', 'morally ambiguous', or the ever popular 'misunderstood'.

It wasn't worth the effort.

"It's been slow on that front," the answer seemed to fit both questions, so I left it at that. "How about you?"

"Me or Rosy?"

"Rosy?"

"Her _name_," his look took a turn towards pointed as he tilted the gun in emphasis, "is Rosy."

Futilely seeking illumination from Vlad, I encountered a fence-sitting expression which managed to be both chiding and understanding, depending on the viewing angle.

Apparently, in the land of Russian cowboys, the moniker 'AK' was considered to be a grievous insult.

I sighed.

"Both of you."

"I'm good. Rosy has been a bit underworked lately, though," the statement was soaked in definite regret. Grief, almost. The cheer picked back up in an instant, though, as he gave 'Rosy' an encouraging pat, "But now you'rehere, it's all going to change, right?"

Vlad interjected into the conversation before I had the chance to establish a thorough heart-to-heart with the lugubrious rifle, steering it away from the hot topic.

"Mind if we come in?"

After exchanging a condensed telepathic broadcast with his boss – I wondered if the duo had the capacity of injecting movie quotes into the realm of optical communication as well - the redhead nodded, lowered his rifle and stepped out of the way, allowing us to step inside.

"Nice glass."

"Thanks."

Once the heavyset door shut behind us with a dim thud, I came to the realization that we'd just walked into a modern-day variant of Plato's cave.

The darkness seemed to have a presence of its own, a soul-swallowing entity mercilessly consuming the entire room. It effortlessly rivaled the inside of a whale, and was probably sufficient to arm a generic evil empire of choice.

Or maybe it was just trying to be hide-and-seek friendly.

The only signs of a resistance put up by the forces of light were the pale, anorectic rays which spent their limited energy breaking and entering through the cracks formed between what appeared to be wooden plates nailed onto the windows. They sliced the room in several places, creating pallid, ghostly outlines of an undistinguishable interior.

The house couldn't have been haunted, though.

Even the most low-maintenance ghosts had higher standards.

And I doubted they were willing to risk choking on the dust, which casually replaced oxygen in this claustrophobic atmosphere.

It took some time for both my lungs and eyes to adapt to the hazardous conditions.

"I think you're taking the concept of invisibility a bit too far, Vlad."

"The gods of electricity have abandoned this fine establishment."

"Have you tried praying to the gods of bill paying?"

"They have a very strict sacrifice policy. Besides, you know I'm an atheist."

In the gap following Vlad's speech, I used my newly acquired night vision to become acquainted with the shadowy surroundings.

This must have been a bar of some sort in a former life, or so testified the vast interior, as well as the round tables randomly scattered about the place (some missing vital parts and therefore resembling post-apocalyptic mutants, others ugly on their own inborn right), and the key witness - a massive wooden bar at the side of the room. A large, malformed heap of dust lodging by a window had perhaps, in some point in ancient history, constituted for a jukebox.

Vlad, having already grown his own set of nocturnal eyes, advanced towards the bar, soon to be joined by the redhead and his feminine rifle. I trailed after them, trying not to be swallowed by the dust storm that the movement caused.

Having found a spot he was happy with, Vlad stopped, giving Mike an inquisitive look.

"How's the babysitting going?"

"It's… uh," Mike shifted from foot to foot in a distinctly un-cowboy-like manner, "the usual."

"Bodycount?"

"Not yet."

"Impressive enough."

"… Except a couple of rats."

"Are we talking figurative or literal?"

"Literal. Zver' is scared of them. Big time phobia."

"Don't tell me he _shot _them."

An uncomfortable silence took the dust's place as a temporary suffocating method.

Eventually, Vlad's altogether not-too-happy sounding voice replaced it, "That's charming. Did you dispose of the bodies?"

"Don't worry, boss," a touch of pride returned into the cowboy's speech. "They're sleeping with the fishes."

"I _hope_ that's figurative," Vlad's mouth curved into an uncomfortable line as he surveyed the dusty cavern. "Where is the Wild Bunch?"

Mike made a 'come with me' gesture, shuffling off in the direction of a nearby door.

Conforming to the persuasive instance of body language, we followed the cowboy into a backroom.

It froze up in our honor, as is somebody had just pushed a pause button on it.

The scene we'd walked in on was kidnapped straight out of the William Tell legend, with only minor alterations.

The traditional crossbow was replaced with a rather modern gun, and the apple's place was taken by an avant-garde vodka bottle.

Other than the two central characters required to play out the scene, four more men were spread around the room, contented with their roles as very-far-from-innocent bystanders. One of them was holding on to a top hat filled with bills, which, had it possessed the gift (or curse, depending on your point of view) of speech, would've implied there was a wager of some sort involved.

And because obviously this wasn't challenging enough, the one-man-firing-squad had a bandana, the color of which foreshadowed the likely outcome of this ordeal, tied over his eyes.

"That's what happens when there's no television," Vlad commented mournfully.

I shook my head empathetically, "Kids these days."

The scene defrosted within an instant, and miraculously, all the guns in the room found themselves pointed at me.

Even the blindfolded one, though its reaction had been a tad belated.

"We're all friends here," Vlad informed the trigger-happy denizens of the room in a tone laced with calm authority. He moved his head in a slight yet concise motion, and the surrounding firearms reluctantly returned to their natural habitat. "You do remember we're supposed to be keeping a low profile here?"

The aforementioned William Tell tapped the silencer attached to his gun helpfully.

"Thought of everything, I see." Deciding not to press the issue further, he brought his hand to my shoulder, adapting a posture mimicking that of a teacher introducing a new student to the class, "You boys know Max, don't you?"

A wide spectrum or expressions was unleashed in my direction, ranging from confusion, through silent alarm, to ocular homicide.

It seemed that most of them had either crossed my path at one point or another, or heard stories of such crossings.

I felt like a part of the gang already.

"Max is here to help us, so we need to learn to play nice together. What happened in the past stays in the past."

He passed his gaze around the room, collecting an assortment of unenthusiastic nods and half-hearted mumbles.

"I'm glad we agree."

With that taken care of, he turned back to me, sliding into one of his more theatrical expressions.

"Max, allow me to present the most notorious, fearsome and efficient gentlemen of fortune to grace the east coast."

Gentlemen of fortune.

It was good to know that political correctness has slipped into the ranks of organized crime as well.

"Anton Kamikaze."

William Tell, a tall fellow who seemed to violently dislike the concept of shaving, sniffed in acknowledgement from underneath the crimson blindfold, clearly anxious to return to his exercise in luck stretching.

"Ivanushka Durachok."

The bottle bearer was, unsurprisingly, the youngest of the group. He undoubtedly considered this death defying act to be a rite of passage of sorts, instead of the ancient Rome styled entertainment it really was.

Judging by the sourness added to his already far from ecstatic expression, the baby-faced Russian didn't appreciate the name he was given, but due to the bottle-shaped obstacle, his newbie status, and perhaps a language barrier, had little to no choice in the matter.

"Kostya Bessmertniy."

The resident bookie was a gaunt, nearly skeletal fellow with rodent-like features. At his introduction, he unleashed a mouth full of crooked teeth into a smile that might have been going for friendly, but instead winded up embodying the essence of shifty.

"Cheburashka."

This one was lacking in the height department, but more than made up for it with the sheer power of the liquid fury his face was busy contorting into. His ears reached colossal proportions, and the buzz cut he was sporting wasn't entirely helpful in that respect, either. With the infernal scowl (I couldn't tell whether it was his default expression, or special-made for me), he looked like an exceptionally vicious cross between Mickey Mouse and the Tasmanian Devil.

Cute, in a strange sort of way.

"Zver'"

The man – if that was indeed the proper term for him – could have posed as an authentic Neanderthal in a prestigious museum exhibition somewhere. Instead, he'd obviously chosen a more exciting career, and had gathered his share of trophies to show for it. A raw scar embellished the area where most people would've preferred to have a nose. Another one graced his left cheek, imitating a black snake.

Not the most aesthetically agreeable individual I'd had the fortune of encountering, all in all.

His greeting came in form of an animalistic sneer. I failed to detect much affection within it, but I decided not to take it too close to heart.

It was clear that his love belonged solely to the fluffy, morbidly endearing teddy bear depicted on his T-shirt.

I stared at the furry creature for a second or two, then looked at Vlad.

"We don't talk about that," he half-whispered.

That, I figured, was probably for the best.

"And last but not least - Autist."

The expansive hand gesture led to a disheveled blonde leaning against the wall in the far corner of the room. He was clad in a dreamy expression, mouth stuck in a fly garage position. His hand was stretched out in front of him, throwing and catching some item in a distracted rhythm.

It took me several moments to realize the object he was so absent-mindedly flipping happened to be a large and rather menacing combat knife.

True to his name, he offered little in the way of response.

With the awkward round of introductions done with, Vlad turned to the cowboy slash babysitter, who had so far been doing an upstanding job staying conveniently invisible.

"What did you bet on?"

Mike's face was desperately trying to match the color of his hair as he struggled against the confines of this incriminating cookie jar moment. "Bullseye," he admitted at last.

"Always the optimist," Vlad smiled pleasantly. He didn't bother to lower his voice for the next sentence, "I say _his _eye is more likely."

Language barrier or not, the bottle carrier gave a definite grimace at that.

Mike simply shrugged, probably deciding that any word he said could and would be used against him in a court of dubious law.

Vlad chose to let him off the hook regarding his misadventures in babysitting, though, instead going with a plain, "Get me a first aid kit." Changing direction and striding towards the unfortunate target practice subject, he paused to eye the bottle intently. "You better not be wasting good alcohol for this."

"We drank it all already, boss," reassured William 'Kamikaze' Tell.

Vlad gave a sigh of great relief, "Alright then." He patted the rookie on the chest reassuringly, meanwhile slipping into a smile that somehow failed to project the same reassuring qualities. "Have fun."

Motioning for me to join him, he headed for a second door positioned on the other side of the room.

Surprisingly making it out without being shredded to pieces by the loving gazes (though I was pretty sure that someone – probably the Tasmanian Mouse – had drilled a hole through the back of my head with his eyes), we winded up in a narrow, light-deprived corridor.

It ended in a stairway.

Somehow, I doubted it led to heaven.

Vlad came to a stop there, turning around and leaning against the railing.

Sometimes, I wondered whether he was capable of standing on his, without the benefit of advantageously positioned scenery.

I assumed a spot beside him.

"Playing with guns isn't very healthy, you know."

"I'm a firm believer in Darwinian elimination." He shot a pointed look to the end of the hallway; not that the dwellers of that room required further help in the ballistic department.

Forming a narrow pathway of air through the dust speck terrain as he exhaled with deliberate slowness, he allowed a few seconds to pass idly before turning an appraising look on me, "What do you think?"

"You're missing a Sporty Spice."

"I know. It's tragic. I was just about to tell Mike to open an auditioning process."

"So that's your leftover mafia, huh?"

"The ones who didn't have the pleasure of running into the Max Payne pest control services," there was no accusation in there, merely a cynical breed of fact relaying, "or didn't scatter in the wind while I was away."

His face settled into a sardonic smirk.

"The most loyal and the most insane."

On cue, the sound of shattering glass erupted from the nearby room.

Since it wasn't accompanied by the thud of a body hitting the floor, I could only assume that lady luck had found a vacancy in her busy schedule to pay a visit to the young Russian.

The round of applauds and appreciative whistles that followed confirmed the notion.

Although, with this sort of crowd, you never knew.

"It's a good pick."

"It's the _only_ pick."

Mike came out of the backroom then, carrying the requested kit, along with impressive wad of cash. He made his way over in a jaunty stroll.

"Optimism pays off," he attempted to mimic his boss's Cheshire qualities as he handed him the kit, clad in a tight veil of self-satisfaction.

"Blind luck has never been in short supply here," Vlad smirked in reply, failing to look significantly impressed.

Still gleaming like a nuclear plant on the verge of overheating, the cowboy announced, "We're going double or nothing."

"Good thing optimism isn't your sole income," Vlad disconnected from the railing, shaking his head. "We're going upstairs. It's a safer investment."

Mike departed with a frown while we headed for the second floor.

"Since when have _you _been playing it safe?"

"I like my risks calculated, Max," he glanced at me, the corner of his mouth taking a curve upwards, "Optimism doesn't usually build into that."

We arrived upstairs, entering the first door on the right.

This room was Spartan enough (which might have stemmed from Vlad's penchant towards keeping Trojan horses as pets), with a lone wardrobe, a bleak nightstand and a rather miserable looking chair composing the interior design. While comparatively dust-free, it still carried the touch of the entropy that enwrapped the house, in form of a leak that adorned the colorless ceiling. A traditional tin bucket was placed under the improvised waterfall, currently filled about half way.

A large bed stood by the wall, looking like it was made for Father Bear, which brought upon an interesting image of Vlad as the notorious Goldilocks.

It was almost too perfect a fit.

"What are your thoughts on porridge, Vlad?"

He raised his brow slightly at the question. "I believe it's a part of a worldwide conspiracy to torture children around the globe. You know, along with that purple dinosaur of yours. Pure evil."

Damn.

So much for that theory.

And I'd liked it so much.

His eyebrows went a notch higher. "Why?"

"Just wondering." He wasn't the only one who could feint innocence, after all. Paying no attention whatsoever to the exponentially growing mix of curiosity and annoyance encompassing his expression, I let my eyes wander over the room in a quiet examination. "Whose place is it?"

Still enjoying his bout of resentment over being left in the dark on porridge-related matters, he placed the kit on the nightstand, then sat down the bed, turning a sulky glower on me. He was unable to maintain it for long, though, eventually extracting a cigarette pack from his pants pocket, lighting one up and sending it to lounge at the vacation spot in the corner of his mouth.

"Used to belong to a friend of mine," cue for a spacious wave into a hypothetical horizon, "from the good old days. He didn't have any living relatives, and," a pause was created, making way for a cigarette puff, as well as a brief stretch of floor examination, "I guess I was the next best thing."

"I came over one night, we had a," this momentary pause seemed to be of a more evasive variety, and the next word resembled a band-aid glued over the truth, "conversation, and he said he wanted me to take over once he was gone. He was drunk as hell, of course," the short-lived smirk had a tint of gloom to it, "but it was as close to a will as he ever made. He died not long after that," there was a touch of accelerations attached to that bit, as he raced for the finish, "So, unofficially, I suppose you could call it mine."

"And officially?"

"I'm not sure it exists."

"Fitting."

He tilted his head in token agreement, swiftly returning to a vertical position and walking over to the rain-absorbing bucket, where he let the cigarette perform a suicide jump into the watery grave. He fixed his gaze on me then, eyes glittering in the pale light. "Alright, lie down. Let's do some field surgery"

I didn't like the excessive enthusiasm I detected in his voice.

"I can do it myself."

"Are you sure you're _that_ flexible?"

"I have a rubber girl in my family tree."

"That's hot," he assessed appreciatively. "I have a rubber duck." He tilted his head in my direction, igniting a persistent look, "Max, come on."

There was something about that particular tone of his that made it distressingly difficult to argue further, and, as an added bonus, made you feel foolish for having attempted it in the first place.

I _hated _that tone.

But resistance had already become futile.

I lowered myself onto the Several Kings Size bed, fighting off the irrational buildup of dread which found its disturbing ancestry in the sinister aura inside a dentist's office.

But even Vlad couldn't have been _that _sadistic.

Could he?

I watched from my limited angle as he dragged the wretched chair over, taking a seat beside me.

"This is going to hurt me more than it'll hurt you," he exclaimed shamelessly.

"Why do I have a hard time believing that?"

"Because you're a skeptic at heart?"

"It's a smart thing to be."

Especially around certain individuals.

"True. But there's nothing wrong with a little faith here and there."

"Faith in _what_?"

"Mankind?" he smiled vibrantly.

The snort I gave expressed my opinion on that subject eloquently.

"Well, I didn't say the _good_ of mankind, did I?"

Before I'd gotten the chance to muse over what Vlad's belief system encompassed, he got chatty again.

"So how has that," he performed a short sniff, stopping short of any specific sound, "P.I. business of yours been treating you?"

"It's a living," I summarized. I would've been a little more inclined towards the conversation if I hadn't known it was simply a device meant to distract me from the upcoming pain.

"Sounds more like _survival_ to me."

"What's wrong with –" all sounds became momentarily entrapped as I encountered a feeling resembling a jagged lighting strike in my lower back. To Vlad's credit, this wasn't nearly as bad as it _could_ get with this sort of injuries. Still, the next word lost several decibels, barely making it through the pain filter, "survival?"

"Nothing," he replied flippantly, punctuating with another quick, smooth removal. "But it wouldn't kill you to live a little."

After sharing his pearls of wisdom, he tossed the homeless pieces into the bucket, then proceeded to extract a few more errant shards, thus effectively slaughtering my end of the debate.

I was beginning to wonder whether seeing the glass as half empty would help.

That line of thought came to a sad and unexpected end as a distinctly hostile piece was eradicated, and, if to judge by the reaction of my nerve center, took a few internal organs along for the ride.

A deep, low groan escaped before I could even attempt to capture it.

Great.

My eyes were closed – an instinctive reaction to the not quite pleasurable sensation - but I could _hear_ him grinning.

I braced myself for the inevitable, and wasn't disappointed.

"Really, Max, I'd expected a higher pain tolerance level from an invincible superhero like yourself. This is a little pathetic."

There really was only one answer I could give.

"Fuck you, Vlad."

"Is that a promise?" he inquired hopefully. Another expedition of glass mining cut me off from my available retort supply. My back felt like a raw steak, going for medium rare. One wouldn't have been able to deduce that from the aggravating brightness inhabiting Vlad's voice like a rainbow in the middle of a hurricane, though. "All done. Lose the shirt."

This winning combination of sentences resulted in an acute lack of eagerness to follow through his instructions.

"Or you can keep bleeding. Your choice, obviously."

It wasn't an easy one.

Eventually, I managed to pep-talk myself into choice number one.

Somebody had to spare my already abused jacket from the bloodstains.

Shoving the pain into a far corner of my mind, I sat up, removing the jacket and the shirt before lying back down.

He attended to the wound cleaning first, doing it with an unnervingly quiet proficiency, then pulled out a few bandages, placed his knee on the bed for a better reach, and began attaching them to the hotspots across my back.

"No stitches?"

"The cuts aren't really that deep. And you're pretty enough without them, trust me."

"I thought you'd relish the opportunity anyway."

This prompted a solitary chuckle. "I'm not that big a fan of this whole eye for an eye business. It gets monotonic, and I prefer my revenge more elaborate." Whether he was confusing 'elaborate' with 'bombastic' (Vlad's fondness for bad puns must've, like many parts of him, carried an infectious quality) was left a point for debate as he went on, "Besides, you saved my life." He paused, presumably in order to form some manner of expression I wasn't let in on, then added, "Repeatedly. So really, it wouldn't be very honorable of me."

"Vlad, I wouldn't put _honor _and you in the same room together."

When you struck a nerve with Vlad, the chain reaction was easy enough to miss. There was no change of expression, or in the tone of voice.

In fact, it wasn't noticeable by any standard detection method known to man.

But if you knew him well enough, and only a handful of people could claim that dubious privilege, you could almost feel a subtle shift in the surrounding atmosphere. Sense the nearby temperature plunging into a frosty abyss, shamelessly overlooking all laws of physics in the process.

It'd just dropped several degrees.

The chill came with a brief silence, and when he spoke again, his voice carried an air of elaborately balanced detachment, careful not to sway in any particular direction. "Just because my honor isn't your favorite brand doesn't mean I don't have any, Max. It's all a matter of taste, after all."

He was hiding behind generalizations again, his cover of choice.

More edge went into the following set of words, "So how about you save all that judgmental energy for the next killing spree?"

A good offense as the best defense was clearly what he'd been going for, but I was tired of the ping pong wars.

Blatantly ignoring the offered bait, I let my tone soften a bit, "Why don't you explain your honor, Vlad?"

The abrupt change of tactics brought upon an ambience of confusion on his end. He didn't seem to have a good comeback for that. "It's -" the choppy snippet was followed by a quiet gap that soon became a chasm. Mild turbulences were created in the cool air as several threads of attempted speech died before they began, running into invisible barriers, trapped between uncertainty and frustration. This was as close to stammering as Vlad got. Finally, he compromised for a blank but surprisingly honest note. "I can't."

For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to grill him further about it.

"Write an essay and hand it in by tomorrow, then."

An expulsion of air loosely resembling a snort was his only response.

The icy demeanor seemed to be in the process of slow melting, though.

He applied the last few bandages quietly, the only sound effect at hand being the unsteady dripping of rain through the structurally-challenged ceiling. He tapped his fingers over my shoulder several times before regaining his speaking ability.

"Max?"

"Hmm?"

"Why porridge?"

I battled the urge to grin. It was reassuring to find out that I still possessed the innate talent of driving him crazy.

"I was just curious, Vlad. You read too much into things."

The answer clearly failed to satisfy him. "So you won't tell me."

"No."

"Fine."

I resisted countering with a 'fine' of my own, tempting as this childish response was.

With the critical porridge talk over, I'd become aware that while Vlad's bold venture into the realm of field medicine was officially over, his hands still lingered in the vicinity of my back.

I couldn't find the exact definition for what he was doing, with no dictionary in sight, and only my body's input on the subject.

Whatever it was, it felt good.

His hands, despite previous displays of iciness, were remarkably warm, an antithesis to the room temperature.

His thumb brushed against my spine, while the other hand was performing something closer to a massage at the base of my neck.

He was leaning closer to me; close enough that I could feel his breath connecting with my shoulder.

My body was doing all within its power to disconnect from the mind, to let this sensation stretch awhile.

My mind, to its credit, was being a good sport, coming to the verge of shutting itself off.

I felt almost ready to drift into sleep, the world beginning to fade away...

A deep rooted instinct kicked in, jolting me back into reality.

"What are you doing?" I had to force the words out of my throat, which felt unnaturally constricted.

His reply came at a low, captivating pitch, gliding into a nearly subconscious level with a disturbing ease.

"Relax, Max. It's open to interpretation."

Just about the tagline to all things Vlad.

"Like hell it is."

"Hell _is _pretty open to interpretation."

And he was clearly an expert on that front, too.

For a moment, I was tempted to just let things roll. It couldn't hurt, could it?

The moment passed.

Who was I kidding?

"Vlad."

He detached his hands, finishing the movement's arc with a shrug and giving a barely audible sigh.

A retreat from the bed area was quick to follow.

I raised myself back to a sitting position, watching him as he opened the wardrobe and dug into it, coming up with a fresh dress shirt.

A swift set of precise motions found the foreign piece of attire he'd been clad in unbuttoned and removed, and he releases it in my direction with a toss.

It took an undignified flight, landing over my head.

Pulling the makeshift headwear off, I discovered he'd already managed to slip the vengeance-deprived shirt on, not bothering with the presentation front for once.

Folding his arms, he locked his eyes against mine, forming the human male equivalent of head-to-head ramming.

We could've gone on like this forever.

A dull sound arrived from downstairs, immediately followed by a wail.

Lady Luck must've been taking a nap this time around.

Who could blame her?

Vlad smiled mirthlessly. "I think they're going to need the first aid kit down there."

I nodded.

He frowned, refusing to exit the visual battleground until I did so myself by shaking my head and turning away. He lingered a short while, then retrieved the popular kit and headed for the door.

He walked several feet before coming to a premature halt, gracing me with an over-the-shoulder glance.

"I'm a little too big a boy to be playing with mixed signals, Max. When you've moved past denial and into, say, bargaining, be sure to let me know."

A few more steps brought him to a dramatic final stand by the door.

"And take a shower. You could use one."

Satisfied with having the last word, he left.

Other than the mandatory creak, the door closed soundlessly. The sentiment, however, was without a doubt that of a spectacular slam.

From Ice Queen to Drama Queen in less than five minutes.

Good thing he was keeping the queen part consistent, at least.

Vlad's departure left some room to try and make sense of the chaotic mess enwrapping my brain.

It wasn't quite denial anymore, but I couldn't muster up whatever was required to pass to the next stage, which left me with ambivalence.

It was an old favorite of ours.

Maybe taking a shower wasn't the most horrible in the land of ideas.

A few minutes later, I was turbulently attempting to retract that deeply misled thought as Vlad's 'elaborate' revenge unfolded in the form of liquid ice spilling over me from the malevolent shower.

The gods of hot water obviously didn't favor this house, either.

At least this explained why Vlad had tried to incinerate himself in my shower earlier.

Narrowly escaping from the evil frost demons, I ended up back in the surgery room, shivering and shaking like an out-of-control washing machine with volatile tendencies.

Grabbing the first piece of fabric I could get my hands on, I soon found myself wearing my old shirt and jacket combination.

My teeth still insisted upon clattering.

On the bright side, I hadn't felt this awake in years.

A fit of unhealthy curiosity hit me, and I opened the wardrobe door, gazing into the mirror attached to it.

The realization came slowly, tiptoeing into my consciousness with the stealth of an elite commando unit, and the persistence of a veteran uninvited guest.

I'd missed it.

Not just the shirt, its distinguished vengefulness notwithstanding, but also what came with it. A counterfeit identity constructed around my own, becoming too real for comfort.

The feeling that I was playing by no one's rules but my own.

I kept watching the reflection, for once feeling almost at home with the madness it presented with its grin.

Maybe it was time to start shedding the long dead shell I was trapped in.

_This_ wasn't a disguise anymore.

This was what I'd become.

And I wasn't going to run away from it anymore.


End file.
